LeBron James shrugged. He rolled his eyes. He complained to the refs. He hung his head.
There was no discretion Monday in Minnesota — everything you needed to know about the Lakers and their leading scorer was on display in big, bold letters.
“It’s everything,” James said. “It’s the rhythm. I just feel off rhythm these last three, four games.”
Playing on the second night of back-to-back games, James looked as uncomfortable as ever in a Lakers uniform as he and his team failed over and over at the game’s simplest task — putting the ball in the basket.
Minnesota beat the Lakers 109-80 on Monday, their fifth loss in their last seven games. James has now gone four straight games without a made three-pointer, and the Lakers’ offense has failed to score 110 points or more in five of its last six games.
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The 80 points is the Lakers’ worst offensive game in James’ time with the team and the worst for the organization since Jan. 22, 2017.
Anthony Davis called the game “disgusting.”
For James, it’s been a miserable stretch of offensive basketball, particularly from the perimeter where he’s now missed 19 consecutive threes. He’s also been remarkably careless with the ball, turning it over six times on Monday, including one pass that perfectly split D’Angelo Russell and Gabe Vincent on the break, neither player close to keeping it from going into the seats.
James has turned it over at least five times in 11 of the Lakers’ 21 games.
Russell, who missed Sunday’s ugly win in Utah, led the Lakers with 20 points.
Slightly less concerning than the James’ struggles is Davis’ bad week. Monday, he scored only 12 points, a season low. He’s been held below 20 in three of the Lakers’ last four games.
“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.
Before the game, coach JJ Redick said he and the players believed the best version of their team is one based on motion.
“I think everybody that I’ve talked to, and that’s our main seven or eight guys, they all feel the same way I do, which is the best version of us is when we have body and ball movement. I think we’ve seen that be a fact,” Redick said. “I think they all agree with that. I’ve had conversations with them, they’ve all agreed with that. And I think if you look at the quarters, games where we’ve stalled out, we haven’t had that.”
Playing on back-to-back nights, the Lakers didn’t move much as they trudged through another loss in Minnesota where they’ve won only twice since the 2015-16 season.
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“I feel like the offense was fun. … I really believe we’ve gotten better defensively. And I think we’ve spent a lot of time as a staff defensively,” Redick said. “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.”
And they’re going to need James to do it.
“Work,” James said when asked about the solution. “Just work. That’s all.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
