The Lakers must reduce their turnovers and improve their foul shooting for a shot at making the postseason, star and coach say.
EL SEGUNDO >> Heading the start to the so-called “second half” of the season, in which the Lakers have 25 games to make up the current three-game gap separating them from the eighth seed, Luke Walton and LeBron James were reading off the same page of the playbook: The Lakers’ focus going forward is simple; take care of the little things.
At the top of the list: Free throws, and making them. Also, turnovers, and not making them.
“Back to the basics,” coach Walton said after shootaround Thursday morning where the Lakers prepared for the Houston Rockets.
“Gotta win games,” James said. “It starts with not turning the ball over, which has been a huge down for our team.”
The Lakers came out of the All-Star break averaging 15.9 turnovers per game, the second-most in the league. The bad habit, leading to 18.6 points off turnovers for opponents, has been partly the result of living on the knife’s edge between the sensational play and the what’s killing their chances to win, Walton said.
“We naturally have guys who like the home run play,” Walton said. “But it’s the strength of some of theirs. Lonzo likes throwing 90-foot touchdown passes, LeBron likes ’em. Rondo likes ’em. We’re aware of that.
“Part of it is, yeah, we’re a new group that’s learning how to play together and where how to get each other the ball, where we like the ball, those type of things, and we’re with a new staff, so it’s a new playbook for a lot of guys, so that takes time to get familiar with as well.”
There’s also the matter of the Lakers foul free-throw shooting so far: Going into the All-Star break, the Lakers were attempting an average of 23.6 free throws a game, the 12th most in the NBA, but they were doing themselves no favors with those opportunities, shooting a league-worst 68.7 percent from the line.
“We gotta get up there and knock our free throws down when we do,” James said.
