Marcus Smart Is Confident The Lakers Will Start Knocking Down Shots Vs. Thunder

The Lakers’ offense has been struggling all postseason long, and Game 1 against the Thunder was no exception.

Los Angeles failed to crack 100 points, losing on the road to OKC. In fact, in their last five playoff games, LA has only scored above the century mark once.

Despite the inability to put the ball through the hoop, the Lakers are certain that change is going to come.

“We’re going to make shots,” Marcus Smart said postgame. “It’s just a matter of time and we just got to continue to make sure we’re shooting them.”

LA and OKC took the same number of attempts at 85, but the Thunder just made more shots. OKC went49% from the field and 43% from deep, while LA shot 41% overall and 31% from beyond the arc.

Besides just making more of their shots, LeBron James offered insights into how those looks can be improved.

“We have to be better at finding ways to get into the blender, finding ways to get into the paint,” LeBron said. “We know they’re a paint-swarming team so we have to be better with getting into the paint, not turning the ball over and shooting with confidence. I thought we got some really good looks.”

Similar to putting points on the board, turnovers have also been an issue for LA. They had 18 in Game 1 and lead the playoffs in this category, averaging 17.7 per game. That can’t continue if the Lakers want to pull off a series upset. No one has beaten OKC even once in the playoffs, and self-inflicted errors will not lead to anything good for LA.

On the plus side, this was just one game, and the path towards improvement is clear. The Lakers need to protect the ball, get in the paint and take advantage of the looks they get from deep.

“We watched the film and know we can shoot a lot on threes on this team,” Rui Hachimura said. “I think they gave up a lot of threes in the regular season. They’re like one of the worst teams or something [at allowing threes]. We talked about that. I think we need to shoot more threes for sure, especially against them. I think in the second half we did a better job, but we could have done it in the first.”

Even with how badly things went for LA, they hung around with OKC for most of the game. This was just one performance, and not every contest will go this way. Austin Reaves will play better, LA’s defense has proven to be respectable and if a couple more shots can go down, they can still leave OKC with a 1-1 split.

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