Since he came to the Los Angeles Lakers in a late December trade, forward Dorian Finney-Smith has made a definite impact, and that impact cannot be measured with basic stats.
He has infused the team with the type of tenacious perimeter defense it had been lacking, not to mention toughness, grit and resolve. It now possesses a number of players who have such qualities, including forward Jarred Vanderbilt, who returned after missing almost a full year due to a foot injury, guard Gabe Vincent and G League alumnus Jordan Goodwin.
But Finney-Smith has also given the Lakers some much-needed 3-point shooting. It's just that he's been a bit hesitant to pull the trigger when he has had good looks.
In Monday's win over the Houston Rockets, that hesitancy wasn't really there. He got up 11 3-point attempts and made six of them, which allowed him to finish with 20 points.
Luka Doncic revealed that he has been asking Finney-Smith to shoot the basketball more often.
“No, I just told him today, if you don’t want to shoot, I’ll shoot,” Doncic said. “You can ask him. I think he could have shot more. Three or four times he was open, he didn’t want to shoot it. It’s the only thing I told him. He knows how to tell.”
Finney-Smith admitted that he has been encouraged to let fly more often from 3-point range.
Via Lakers Nation:
“Yeah, he kept telling me that… I’m always one to make the right read, so if I see anybody running at me, I’m gonna make the swing-swing and they’re like ‘Bro, you’re the hot player. Shoot the ball,’” Finney-Smith said. “It feels good when guys like him and LeBron [James] are telling me to shoot.”
In total, Finney-Smith has hit 38.6% of his 3-point attempts since joining the Lakers. He finished the month of March with a 40.2% accuracy from that distance while attempting a total of 82 treys, compared to 46 such attempts in February.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Luka Doncic says he's been asking Dorian Finney-Smith to shoot more
