LOS ANGELES — It wasn’t even a week ago when the Lakers found themselves winning despite their shooting woes.
But lately, the outside game has been fueling their surging offense, with the latest example coming in their 129-119 NBA Cup group-play win over the Dallas Mavericks on Friday night at Crypto.com Arena.
“This was one of those games where your offense has to help your defense,” coach JJ Redick said. “And to come away from that game with essentially a 138 offensive rating against the No. 2 defense in the league, getting [Anthony Davis] back, it says a lot about our guys’ ability to execute and pass to each other and make shots.”
The Lakers had been long overdue for nights when their outside shot fell.
After starting the season as one of the league’s worst 3-point shooting teams, the Lakers shot a then-season-best 44.8% from beyond the arc (13 of 29) in Tuesday’s home win over the Clippers.
They followed up with an even more potent shooting performance against the Mavericks, knocking down a season-high 51.4% (18 of 35) of their 3-pointers on Friday night to help extend their winning streak to six games.
Austin Reaves (38 points) led the Lakers with six 3s, while Luka Doncic (35 points) and Rui Hachimura (14 points) made four apiece.
“I finally made 3s, so that was nice,” Reaves said. “Luka draws so much attention. [LeBron James] is obviously Bron and they are gonna get the majority of attention. I kind of run around out there and find open spots and make shots, hopefully big shots.”
But the Lakers have been encouraged by more than their shotmaking.
Or having some of their best performances of the season in their NBA Cup games, with the Lakers going undefeated (4-0) in group play to secure home-court advantage for their NBA Cup quarterfinal matchup. They will host the San Antonio Spurs in the knockout round Dec. 10, with top-seeded Oklahoma City facing Phoenix in the other Western Conference game.
The Lakers have been happy with how they’ve locked in to the details of what the coaching staff is asking of them.
“The game plan discipline and game plan execution have been pretty good all season, and we’ve been building that,” Redick said. “The outliers on that, to me, are like the games where we lack effort, didn’t play hard, which basically are two games of the 18.
“Our communication habits, on-court huddles, all of that stuff has been great. And then offensively, the organization and the execution is significantly better than where it was last year. And our ability to understand what we’re trying to do and why we’re trying to do it on offense has been really good.”
With back-to-back home games against the New Orleans Pelicans and Phoenix Suns on Sunday and Monday, respectively, leading into a three-game East Coast trip before the Cup matchup against the Spurs, the Lakers will have plenty to focus on before turning their attention back to the tournament.
“Really pleased that we were able to go undefeated in our group,” Redick said. “More importantly, we’ve got a back-to-back coming up and a really hard road trip. We’ve gotta take care of business in the next two games, and then we’ve gotta go be great on the road like we’ve been for most of the year outside of two games. And the Cup is in some ways a distant memory for the next 12 days or whatever it is.”
PELICANS AT LAKERS
When: 6:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV/Radio: Spectrum SportsNet/710 AM