On Friday night, the Los Angeles Lakers headed into their matchup with the Indiana Pacers extremely shorthanded with Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope all out with injuries.
Despite not having three of its core players, Los Angeles prevailed against the Pacers at the Staples Center with Jordan Clarkson having arguably his best performance of the season. Clarkson finished with a game and season-high 33 points in the 13-point win over Indiana.
Although Clarkson had a big night and led the team to a much-needed win, the Lakers had the worst free-throw shooting performance in NBA history. The 25-year-old guard was asked about the team's persistent problems from the charity stripe and the historically bad performance they had at the line.
“Maybe they've got to get some work in,” Clarkson said. “We've got to get some work in, too. At the free-throw line, it's like a virus or something.”
The Lakers shot a pitiful 14.3 percent from the free-throw line on Friday night. The team went 2-for-14 with Clarkson being the only player on the team to hit from that spot with the Missouri product hitting two of his three attempts.
As a team, the Lakers are shooting 68.8 percent from the free-throw this season. The team's opponents are shooting almost 10 percent better from the line at 77.9 percent. The best free-throw shooter on the team isn't even shooting close to 80 percent with Caldwell-Pope coming in at 76.5 percent.
Needless to say, free-throw shooting has become a major problem for Los Angeles this season as they just can't seem to knock them down with any consistency from game to game. The Lakers are the worst free-throw shooting team in the NBA right now with the Oklahoma City Thunder ahead them at 70.6 percent.
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