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          Los Angeles Lakers

          Lakers strive for balance from beyond arc

          • Baxter Holmes, ESPN Senior WriterOct 30, 2014, 09:34 PM ET
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              Baxter Holmes (@Baxter) is a senior writer for ESPN Digital and Print, focusing on the NBA. He has covered the Lakers, the Celtics and previously worked for The Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times.
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          The 3-pointer issue first reared its head in the preseason. The league is trending one way, the Los Angeles Lakers another.

          And after his team essentially eschewed them during their exhibition contests, including going nearly 13 quarters without making one, first-year Lakers coach Byron Scott said he believed prolific 3-pointing offenses don't win NBA championships. Of course, seven of the past eight NBA champions led all playoff teams in 3-point attempts and makes.

          But just two games (and two blowout losses) into the regular season, and the Lakers have already been torched from beyond the arc. The Houston Rockets held a 12-3 advantage in 3-point makes in the Lakers' season-opening loss, then the Phoenix Suns held a 16-4 edge Wednesday night.

          In other words, the Lakers have been outscored 84-36 on 3-pointers alone this season.

          "The 3-point shot's a big problem for us," Kobe Bryant said after his team's 20-point loss against the Suns. "The brand of basketball that's being played, teams really shoot the 3. We're not a big 3-point shooting team so we can't give up 16 of them."

          Scott agreed.

          "We've got to do a better job of guarding 3s," Scott "That's the two things in the first two games that have really, really hurt us."

          A solution?

          "Well, get out in transition more, knock down a couple 3s ourselves," Bryant said.

          The Lakers will need to take a lot more 3s. The league-average last season was 21.5 attempts per game, a record that broke the previous mark of 20, set the season before. The Lakers are averaging just 11.5 attempts per game.

          But as Scott has noted before -- and Bryant touched on this subject as well -- the Lakers aren't loaded with snipers. Even then, the players they do have who can knock them down -- Ryan Kelly and Nick Young -- are both injured.

          The issue won't go away anytime soon for the Lakers, and they'll notice it even more in their next two games against the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday and then the Golden State Warriors on Saturday. Both of those squads feature potent sharpshooters.