Lakers News: Struggling D'Angelo Russell Doesn't Know How To Improve Against Denver
Los Angeles Lakers starting point guard D'Angelo Russell, an unrestricted free agent this summer, has been so bad in LA's ongoing Western Conference Finals series against the Denver Nuggets that he has fans missing Russell Westbrook!
Pundits expected him to have a bounce back Game 3 as the series shifted to Crypto.com Arena. Instead, Russell had his worst outing yet, scoring just three points while shooting 1-of-8 from the floor.
When asked about how he was looking to improve his play for a do-or-die Game 4, Russell offered up a fairly miffed response, reports Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
"For me? Oh, I don't know," Russell said. "I really don't. I don't know. I'll try to figure it out."
That's never what you want to hear out of a guy your team is paying $31.4 million this year.
Russell needs to step up tonight, because if he and his fellow underperforming LA role players (specifically Jarred Vanderbilt and to a lesser extent Dennis Schröder, on offense at least) don't, Los Angeles will drop tonight's contest, and get swept by Denver en route to the Nuggets' first-ever NBA Finals appearance.
The Lakers trail the Nuggets 0-3 in the series, a probably-insurmountable edge, but there's a fundamental difference, at least in league-wide perception, when it comes to a club that gets swept and a team that at least holds its own for a game or two.
Per McMenamin, 91 of the 149 previous clubs to fall to an 0-3 deficit would go on to be swept in their series.
At a team practice Sunday, head coach Darvin Ham defended his decision to keep Russell in his starting lineups, despite his being a minus on both ends of the floor, per Sam Amick of The Athletic.
"Sometimes the greatest adjustment is just to play better,” Ham reflected. “Play harder. Play better. Sometimes that’s the most key adjustment. It’s funny, (how) it’s almost becoming cliché. [People say], ‘What’s your adjustments, adjustments, adjustments?’ Sometimes you go in there, and you take a long, hard look at the film to clean up what you need to clean up, and you try to do what you’re doing better.”
Russell is logging paltry averages of seven points on .296/.143/.750 shooting splits, plus a decent four assists, two rebounds and 0.7 steals in the series.
“We know he can make those shots,” an optimistic Ham continued. “So the biggest thing is not to get depressed, not to get down, continue to be aggressive, continue to be assertive, and eventually that ball will go in.”
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