MINNEAPOLIS — LeBron James came off a Dalton Knecht screen near the right corner and launched a wide-open 3-pointer near the wing.
The shot sailed left, several feet away from the basket.
The airball was James’ fourth straight miss from deep on the evening — and 19th straight 3-point miss. The streak has spanned four games, dating back to Nov. 26, when James made his final 3-point attempt of the fourth quarter.
The Lakers’ bottom-10 defense has been the issue for most of the season. But more recently, it’s been their offense that’s cost them games. And James’ outing — a season-low 10 points on 4-of-16 shooting, six turnovers — was emblematic of the Lakers’ offensive woes in their 109-80 blowout loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday night.
Los Angeles’ 80 points marked a season-low point total, and their fewest in a game since they scored 73 points on Jan. 22, 2017. Their fifth defeat in their past seven games dropped them to 12-9.
“I’ve not seen us play the way we played earlier in the year,” coach JJ Redick said. “I mean, I’ve got to spend all day tomorrow with my staff trying to figure out how we get back to that.”
The Lakers entered the contest 26th in offensive rating over their past five games. That dates back to the Nov. 23 loss against Denver, in which the Lakers were throttled 70-39 in the second half. That was the turning point for them, Redick said.
Since then, the Lakers have been blown out by the Suns and Timberwolves, and also lost to the Thunder.
“I said that that was an aberration,” Redick said of the second-half performance in the Denver loss. “I said that to the group. I said that to you guys. It’s looking more and more like it’s not an aberration.”
The 39-year-old James has been at the forefront of the Lakers’ offensive problems. Outside of his rebounding and playmaking — he’s averaging 7.2 rebounds and 8.7 assists the last six games — he’s struggling both shooting the ball and taking care of it. James is enduring one of the worst slumps of his career, shooting 39.8 percent overall and just 10 percent on 3s (3-of-30).
“It’s everything,” James said. “It’s the rhythm. I just feel off rhythm the last few, three or four games.”
The Lakers were outscored by 28 points — a team-worst mark — in his 31 minutes on Monday, and have been outscored by 111 points with James on the floor this season (also the worst mark on the team).
Redick attributed James’ poor performance against Minnesota to the Timberwolves’ frontcourt size — a trend in recent Laker opponents and losses. James has shot below 45 percent in all six games.
“They’re a big team,” Redick said. “We’ve played a lot of these teams lately. Last night was three basically 7-footers in the starting lineup. (Jaden) McDaniels, (Julius) Randle, (Naz) Reid, (Rudy) Gobert, like, they’re a big team. If you play stagnant against them, they’re gonna give you problems.”
As for a potential solution to his slump, James’ answer was simple.
“Work,” James said. “Just work. That’s all.”
However, there’s a chance that the team will take a more strategic approach to his workload. When asked if James’ stated goal of playing in all 82 games is realistic and sustainable for the 22-year veteran, Redick said he’s unsure.
“I don’t know that’s in the best interest of him and us if he does that, but if he’s feeling well and feeling good, then he should play,” Redick said. “But we obviously want to … manage that as best we can.”
James, who recently passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1,797 games) for the most games played between the regular season and playoffs combined (1,800 and counting), doubled down on the possibility of playing in all 82 games.
“That’s a goal, but we’ll see,” James said. “It’s something I ain’t discussing right now.”
To be clear, it hasn’t been just James struggling recently.
Anthony Davis scored a season-low 12 points on 4-of-14 shooting against Minnesota. Knecht had his second straight game of single-digit scoring. Over the past two games, he’s scored 12 points on 5-of-18 shooting. No bench player scored more than five points against the Timberwolves.
The Lakers have shot under 30 percent on 3s in three straight games, and have failed to score more than 104 points in five of their six previous games.
“Our offense is nasty right now,” James said.
The Lakers have sorely missed Austin Reaves’ shot creation and playmaking the past two games.
Redick acknowledged that the coaching staff could’ve gone too far recently in stressing the defensive end of the floor in practice, shootaround, film sessions and strategic adjustments. The plan moving forward will be to strike a better balance between the two sides of the ball.
“I really believe we’ve gotten better defensively,” Redick said. “And I think we’ve spent a lot of time as a staff defensively. And this is the nature of the NBA season. You don’t have a ton of time. The things you emphasize, hopefully, you get better at. And sometimes when you don’t emphasize something, or you don’t work on something because you don’t necessarily have time, or you think you’re good at it and you think you have buy-in at it, you just get slippage. We gotta clean that up.”
At the quarter-mark of the regular season, the Lakers are No. 8 in the Western Conference. They rank ninth in offensive rating, 24th in defensive rating and 20th in net rating. They’re 5-8 against teams above .500 and 7-1 against teams below .500.
The most important voices each weighed in with their respective perspectives on the Lakers’ season up to this point.
Redick called the first quarter of the season “uneven and inconsistent.” James said he expected an up-and-down start given the changes in the coaching staff, system, starting lineup and rotation.
“It is what it is,” James said. “This is what our record is and, we’ve got to continue to get better on both ends of the floor. And it’s tough. The West is tough and we know it.”
Davis offered possibly the most honest assessment, highlighting the highs and the lows the group has dealt with over a month and a half into the season before issuing a challenge to the locker room.
“Sometimes we look like a team that can compete with anyone, and sometimes we look like a team that looks terrible and is not going to do anything this season,” Davis said. “So we just got to figure out what team that we want to be for the rest of the season.”
(Photo: David Berding / Getty Images)
