EL SEGUNDO — Outside of the All-Star break, it’s rare for NBA teams to have three consecutive days off between games.
So when this break hit, they knew exactly how they wanted to use the time before the schedule picks back up again, starting with Friday night’s home game against the Philadelphia 76ers.
“We’ll get a chance to tighten up some things offensively, tighten up some things defensively,” Coach Darvin Ham said. “There’s a couple of new wrinkles we want to do on both sides of the ball and we’ll get a chance to look at.”
While those wrinkles likely won’t be shown until they’re back on the court for a game, their play, especially offensively, before the short hiatus provided optimism for the future.
The Lakers’ offensive rating (points per 100 possessions) of 123.4 over their last five games was the league’s second-best mark.
They’ve had the league’s second-best offensive rating over the last two months (119.9 since Jan. 17), but the recent uptick has coincided with running more sets and organized offense.
“It’s very much deliberate,” Ham said after Thursday’s practice. “[Assistant] coach [Phil] Handy does a great job. Just as [assistant] coach [Chris] Jent does a great job with our defense, coach Handy does a great job with our offense. Making sure we’re organized and along with myself and D’Angelo Russell, [LeBron James], everybody, [Anthony Davis] and [Austin Reaves], Spencer [Dinwiddie], just making sure we get a play call in and things may break down.
“A lot of times, coming off a live-ball miss, I’m yelling at them to play basketball so we won’t slow down and try to get guys arranged in certain places and then now that messes up the rhythm. We’ve just been doing a better job of being concise with what we want and what we’re trying to get.”
The Lakers have had a half-court offensive organization rate of around 55% over their last five games, according to data compiled by Cranjis…
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