The Los Angeles Lakers showed plenty of promise in their toughest stretch of the 2017-18 NBA season against two of the most elite teams in the league. Unfortunately, they took a step back with another close loss to the Portland Trailblazers on Saturday night.

While there are many factors that have attributed to their struggles, one of the most glaring issues have come at the free-throw line. It certainly did not go unnoticed by rookie power forward Kyle Kuzma following their 95-92 loss to the Blazers, according to our own Dan Duangdao:

“Just hit free throws. Every game we have lost has been close. We hit free throws, we win. Tonight we shot [60] again”

This is not the first time Kuzma has addressed the Lakers woes from the charity stripe as they have been an issue all season. Los Angeles hit 12 of their 20 free-throws tonight before ultimately coming up just short by three to the short-handed Blazers.

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In the two-point, overtime loss to the Warriors earlier this week in LA, the Lakers fell 116-114 and missed a total of 13 free throws (22-35 for the game). Clearly, free throws have been a difficult hurdle for the Lakers to overcome.

Not only do the Lakers currently rank dead-last in the league in free-throw percentage, but they are the only team shooting under 70 percent on the year (69.1). However, these sort of struggles are a characteristic of a young team like the Lakers. That said, some extra work at the charity stripe before and after practice is definitely the place to start.