Beverley, Patrick (1988- )

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    The Lakers Can’t Make a 3-Pointer

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    Russell Westbrook is getting most of the heat, but the Lakers’ problem is its roster.LOS ANGELES — As Lakers guard Russell Westbrook went up for a 3-pointer against the Clippers, his home crowd groaned before the ball even left his hand. The shot clanked off the rim, justifying the fans’ apprehension.Westbrook missed all six of his 3-pointers in the game on Thursday. It was a microcosm of the two biggest issues facing the Lakers this season: Westbrook and shooting. Again and again on Thursday night, the Lakers faithful remained subdued as the team kept shooting. And missing. And shooting. And missing some more. There were enough bricks that the Lakers could offer themselves up as an infrastructure project.Through the first two games of the season, the Lakers have shot an almost unfathomable 19 for 85 from 3-point range (22.4 percent). That was the biggest factor in a blowout loss to Golden State in the season opener on Tuesday and in a 103-97 loss to the Clippers on Thursday night.In a league where deep shots have evolved from being quirky additions to being the driving force of contemporary scoring, the Lakers constructed their roster without enough players equipped to maximize that style of play. This summer, the Lakers let more formidable shooters like Wayne Ellington and Malik Monk walk, and instead opted to bring in the athletic guard Lonnie Walker IV and Dennis Schröder, neither of whom is known for perimeter prowess.It’s not that the Lakers are in a shooting slump. If someone put tap dancing shoes on a flamingo, one would not say the flamingo was struggling to be Fred Astaire. It’s that — as LeBron James factually noted after Tuesday night’s drubbing by Golden State — the Lakers just don’t have many good shooters. They weren’t built for this.LeBron James had 20 points on Thursday, but, like everyone else, he was cold from outside. He was just 2 of 8 from 3.Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press“We’re getting great looks, but it could also be teams giving us great looks,” James said. “To be completely honest, we’re not a team that’s constructed of great shooting. That’s just the truth of the matter. It’s not like we’re sitting here with a lot of lasers on our team.”And yet the Lakers have launched a bevy of 3s. The penetration skills of Anthony Davis and James have generated open looks outside for other Lakers, but both Golden State and the Clippers also continuously dared the Lakers to shoot.“They want to give us those shots?” Lakers Coach Darvin Ham said Thursday. “We will accept it wholeheartedly. That’s the way we want to play. We want to play fast, physical and free.”He added: “We see these guys making shots in practice and shootaround. They’ve got to do it on game floor. It’s as simple as that.”The Lakers climbed back from multiple deficits on Thursday to keep the game close down the stretch. But they weren’t able to sustain their periods of strong play. After the game, James was asked about his “laser” comments.“I love the way we’re playing basketball right now,” James said. “We’re really sharing the ball offensively. We’re moving bodies. And I think we will begin to knock down shots.”James does have good reason for optimism, but it has to do with the other side of the ball. In the loss to Golden State, the Lakers had a defensive rating of 107.0, which would have been good for fourth in the N.B.A. last season, a fact that guard Patrick Beverley pointed out after the Thursday morning shootaround. The Lakers were even better on Thursday with a rating of 100.0. When the Lakers fell into deficits against the Clippers, they turned up the defensive intensity and forced several turnovers to get out in transition to get back in the game.“I’m definitely not going to sit here and harp on what we can’t do every single game,” James said. “That’s not leadership. What I know we can do: We can defend our ass off.”The Clippers turned the ball over 22 times Thursday, contributing to some of the Lakers’ 15 fast-break points. This is where Westbrook’s skills can be useful to the Lakers. He had five steals Thursday, and as he is known to do, immediately focused on pushing the ball down the floor off those forced turnovers.Anthony Davis had a scary fall against the Clippers, but he returned to the game and led all scorers with 25 points. He was 2 of 4 from 3.Mark J. Terrill/Associated PressBut Westbrook remains a lightning rod for criticism, at times unfairly. He missed all 11 of his shots against the Clippers, much to the chagrin of the crowd. But through another lens, Westbrook played the exact type of game that the Lakers need from him.“We’ve all had bad shooting nights,” James said. “I’ve had bad shooting nights. Everybody in this league has had bad shooting nights. Who cares? I thought he played a great game. Defensively, he was in tune. He was locked in. He pushed the tempo. He just didn’t make any shots. That’s OK.”A key criticism of Westbrook last season was his penchant for turnovers and for playing out of control. He had only one turnover on Thursday while quarterbacking the offense. Westbrook has also been bashed for his shot selection. He has, so far, focused on taking fewer shots of higher quality. Almost all of his 11 shots on Thursday were strong looks.Westbrook is not the issue for the Lakers; that would be roster construction. But if the 33-year-old Westbrook cannot be at least a passable shooter, defenders won’t have to pay him much attention, leaving James and Davis with less room to operate. And if the Lakers want someone other than Westbrook to be their starting point guard, there aren’t many better options on the bench. (And Westbrook has grumbled about coming off the bench.)The Lakers and Westbrook are, for now, stuck with each other. However, Westbrook’s frenetic energy could be a boost for a team suddenly reliant on fast-break points to counter its bad shootingThe Lakers are a work in progress, and while the team lacks shooters, the 3-point shooting percentage will almost surely increase from the low 20s. That improvement, combined with their defensive effort, left Ham upbeat despite the difficult start to the season.“The way we stepped out there and scrapped, even when we did get down, to be able to get back in the game, make it a game, that’s the definition of identity building,” Ham said.He added: “I’ll sleep well. I won’t be angry or depressed. And we still have 80 games left, but we’re trending in the right direction.” More

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      Karl-Anthony Towns and the ‘Swaggy’ Timberwolves Are Ready

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      Towns, the Timberwolves center, said he’s never doubted himself and now he has the right team behind him. “Whatever it takes to win, we will do as a team,” he said.Karl-Anthony Towns has rarely experienced the kind of professional joy he has had this season.It hasn’t been his best year statistically, though he did score a career- and franchise-high 60 points on March 14, becoming the first center since Shaquille O’Neal in 2000 to score 60 points in a game. Nor is it the first time he’s had a shot at the playoffs in Minnesota.But it is, he said, the most supportive and unified team he’s ever been on as a pro.“We’re a swaggy team,” Towns said. “We’ve got great chemistry. We feel very confident in what we can do. We know any time we step on the basketball court, we can beat anyone in the world.”The Timberwolves (46-36) finished the regular season at seventh in the Western Conference, and will face the eighth-place Los Angeles Clippers in the play-in tournament on Tuesday night in Minneapolis. The winner will be the seventh seed in the playoffs and face the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round. The loser will play again on Friday for a chance to be the eighth seed and face the No. 1-seeded Phoenix Suns.If the Timberwolves win this week, they’ll make the playoffs for only the second time since 2004. The only other time during that stretch that Minnesota made the playoffs was in 2017-18, with Jimmy Butler.This year is Towns’s seventh in the N.B.A. since the Timberwolves drafted him first overall in 2015 from the University of Kentucky.Towns spoke with The New York Times about what he loves so much about this team and why he feels more confident in his trash talk these days.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.You’ve grown close with guard Patrick Beverley this season. What did you think of him before you played with him?I always thought of Pat Bev as a pest, you know? Someone you hate to play against but you would love to have on your team. I was right. Having him as a teammate now, you see why so many teams find such amazing value in him, because he is that valuable to a team.Towns described Timberwolves guard Patrick Beverley, right, as “someone you hate to play against but you would love to have on your team.”Andy Clayton-King/Associated PressDo you remember when you started to realize how special he was for this team?I mean, I knew how special he was before, just off his personality and hearing him on the court and everything. I already knew he was a different kind of player. I knew he was special [for the Timberwolves] early on just because the kind of energy he attracts and the kind of energy he expends out. The way he comes to work and the way he approaches work is something I very much appreciate and am very happy to see every day. It makes all of us better, it makes practices better and makes us more engaged.After your 60-point game, you said you hadn’t really been celebrated like that before. What did you mean?Never had that kind of water poured on you, that kind of thing, that kind of celebration for a player, and for it to be me, I’ve never experienced that.I’m so used to feeling like every day at work is another day; regardless of what I put up, it’s what I’m supposed to do. I was supposed to go out there and give ourselves the best chance to win and score at a high rate. So it was just another day at the office. I knew it was a special moment, but it was something I was supposed to do. That’s how I felt.[My teammates] made it more special and they made it something worth celebrating. Like I said, I’ve never been given flowers like that in my career, so it was cool to be appreciated by my teammates and respected by my teammates, but also to be celebrated.Does it help individual players’ confidence, not just yours but everyone’s, to have the kind of closeness as a team you’ve talked about?Yeah, because everyone understands we all want to sacrifice for the betterment of each other and for the betterment of this team. Whatever it takes to win, we will do as a team. I think with winning comes glory for everybody. So we’re fighting for the same thing, and that’s what makes us so dangerous.Given everything you’ve gone through from a basketball sense, did you ever wonder if you’d ever be part of a team like this?No, I never had doubt. I never doubted myself one time for what I could do. I never doubted my skill set, my competitive edge, my competitiveness. I never doubted the work I put in. I knew I just had to wait for my chance. I had to wait for my chance to have a team like this, to have a coaching staff that’s this great. And I’ve had great coaching staffs, but to have a coaching staff mesh with a group of guys the way they have, it builds wins and it builds camaraderie and chemistry. I knew I just needed some stability and a chance and I would run with it and make the most of it.“I walk on the court I feel like I’ve got 14 brothers behind me in anything I do,” Towns said.Nick Wosika/USA Today Sports, via ReutersYou guys got a lot of attention for the way you guys were ribbing and trash-talking the Los Angeles Lakers when they were in Minneapolis in March. You don’t always display that kind of swagger. What has made you feel comfortable showing that side of yourself?Just the chemistry I have with the guys to know that any situation I’m walking into — I feel, we move like a gang. To feel like we move like a gang, not even in a bad sense, in a negative connotation, but just more when I walk on the court I feel like I’ve got 14 brothers behind me in anything I do.It allows me to pull more of my Jersey side. I’m from Jersey. Have that a little bit of trash talk, but more the swag, the confidence we walk around in our neighborhoods with. It’s always great when you feel like you have a team behind you that’s there with you in the trenches, but also winning. You ain’t going to say too much when you’re losing.If the playoff system was like it had been before, you guys would just be in a first-round series. What’s your opinion on the play-in tournament?If we didn’t want to be in the play-in tournament, we should have got more wins and been the sixth or fifth seed. That’s just what it is. I’m not here to complain about any of that. Got to do what you’ve got to do.Are there any ways you’re personally different from the last time you had a shot at the playoffs?My situation is totally different. I’m happy to walk into a situation like this.Can you expand on that?Nah. I don’t want to expand on that. I’m not going back on some past [stuff]. Past is the past. I went through it already once and I’m happy I’m going to go through it this time differently. More

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      Lost Lead Reminds Mavericks Fans of 2006 Collapse

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      Fifteen years ago, the Mavericks lost the N.B.A. finals after winning the first two games of the series. Now they have blown a 2-0 lead over the Clippers.DALLAS — The Dallas Mavericks are one of only four teams to win the first two games in the N.B.A. finals and still lose the series. It was always assumed thereafter that, for this franchise and its fans, no playoff collapse could inflict as much pain as Dallas’s disintegration against the Miami Heat in 2006.Chances are the sentiment still applies, since a first-round series will never be confused with a championship series, but the Luka Doncic-led Mavericks are suddenly careening toward a doozy of an unraveling that might wind up in the same conversation.After seizing a 2-0 lead over the Los Angeles Clippers, with back-to-back road victories that had the league buzzing, Dallas welcomed crowds of nearly 18,000 fans on Friday night and Sunday night at American Airlines Center — and promptly disappointed them both.The series now resting at 2-2 is even worse than it sounds for the Mavericks, because they amassed a 30-11 lead in the first quarter of Game 3 that could have easily caused the Clippers, on the brink of a full-blown franchise crisis, to capsize. Two defeats later, and with Doncic clearly compromised by a neck strain he sustained during Game 3, Dallas has been forced to confront the painful reality that it actually squandered more than a 2-0 lead.“We’ve got to hope in the next couple of days that he can be better — hopefully substantially better,” Mavericks Coach Rick Carlisle said of Doncic’s health. “There’s a two-day break between games, which is a positive in this case.”An extra day off before Wednesday’s Game 5 back at Staples Center in Los Angeles was the lone positive Carlisle could realistically pinpoint.Fueled by Coach Tyronn Lue’s small-ball lineups, stout team defense in Sunday’s 106-81 rout in Game 4 and, most of all, relentless paint attacks from Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, the Clippers have mustered a show of unity and resolve that maybe no one in the N.B.A. outside of Lue expected.Leonard, in particular, has been as dominant as ever offensively in response to last week’s chatter about Doncic’s emergence as the best player in the series, averaging 33.0 points per game on ridiculous 62.7 percent shooting from the field.Mocking the Clippers’ moxie had evolved into a sport within the sport since their collapse against the Denver Nuggets in last summer’s bubble playoffs at Walt Disney World in Florida.On the brink of a Western Conference finals showdown with the Los Angeles Lakers, their storied Staples Center co-tenants, the Clippers went from a 3-1 cushion to a second-round exit by losing three consecutive games to Denver. Coach Doc Rivers was fired and the rigors stemming from the isolation of bubble life were blamed.But then the Clippers appeared to go out of their way to lose their final two games this season to lowly Houston and Oklahoma City, locking in the first-round matchup they preferred with Dallas and ensuring that they would avoid the Lakers until the conference finals.When Doncic and the Mavericks shredded the Clippers twice in Los Angeles to open the series, Lue and his players were lampooned for messing with basketball karma and, worse, reinforcing perceived frailties as a group that could potentially convince Leonard to leave the club in free agency this summer.Reggie Jackson, in the Clippers’s starting lineup for his ball-handling and shooting, scored 15 points in Game 4.Kevin Jairaj/USA Today Sports, via ReutersLue responded with his best work since his coaching contributions to the Cleveland Cavaliers’ historic comeback from a 3-1 deficit in the 2016 N.B.A. finals to Golden State.He made the 6-foot-8 Nicolas Batum his primary center in hopes of keeping more mobile players on the floor to cope with the brilliant Doncic, who averaged 38.0 points through the first games before his 9-for-24 shooting struggles and quiet 19 points on Sunday.Lue also made Reggie Jackson a starter in the backcourt for a boost in shooting and ball-handling and expanded roles for Rajon Rondo and Terance Mann, even though that meant relegating the boisterous Patrick Beverley, his original starter at point guard, out of the rotation.Lue admitted that the Clippers want to “try to wear Luka down” and “let him play one on one” by switching defenders on him constantly, and living with the results as long as they can “keep his assists down.”The smaller, quicker lineups likewise exacerbated the mobility issues that have plagued Dallas’ Kristaps Porzingis defensively since Porzingis, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee as a Knick in 2018, sustained a meniscus tear in his right knee in last season’s first-round series against the Clippers.“We still haven’t done anything yet,” Lue said.A reserved approach is wise in a series in which the home team has yet to win a game, and when Dallas is 3-0 on the Clippers’ floor this season. But there is a strong case to be made that the Mavericks won the first two games thanks as much to their unsustainable success from 3-point range as to the damage Doncic caused at full strength.The Mavericks shot 35-for-70 from deep in those two games, then cratered to 5-for-30 on 3-pointers in Game 4, with Doncic’s supporting cast fading badly, after wasting a 20-for-39 showing in Game 3.Carlisle said that, from his vantage point, Doncic’s injury left him unable to “turn his neck to the left.” That would help explain the lack of zip in his game and Doncic’s joyless expression from the start, with strips of black protective tape from the back of his neck and across his left shoulder protruding from his uniform.Doncic is shooting 40.6 percent from the free-throw line.Jerome Miron/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThere is another growing worry for the Mavericks on top of their star guard’s uncertain health: Doncic’s free-throw shooting. He shot 0-for-5 from the line in Sunday’s loss, taking the All-Star guard down to an indefensible 40.6 percent (13 for 32) for the series.“I don’t think that matters right now,” Doncic said of his injury. “I played terrible.”The Mavericks of 2005-6, who orbited around Dirk Nowitzki, avenged their finals collapse by beating Miami in the 2011 N.B.A. finals after the Heat had signed LeBron James and Chris Bosh to flank Dwyane Wade. Dallas, though, has not won a single playoff series since. These Mavericks came home after stunning the host Clippers twice, believing they had a shot at a sweep to end that drought, given the Clippers’ recent history of folding, and lost all the momentum.N.B.A. teams that lose the first two games at home in a best-of-seven series have rallied to win only four times in 31 tries.The Mavericks know how unlikely the feat is because they pulled it off it in the Nowitzki era in 2005, falling into a 2-0 hole before completing the comeback with a 40-point humiliation of the Houston Rockets in Game 7. Alas, in that series, Dallas had the luxury of playing the deciding game on its own floor after its dreadful start. The Clippers have reclaimed home-court advantage in this series and, more worryingly for Dallas, seem to be enjoying themselves for the first time in a long time after so much doomsday talk.George said he and Leonard did “an incredible job complementing each other” in Dallas and described the victories as two prime examples of “ultimately what we wanted to get to” as a partnership.“And, you know, it’s fun,” George said. More