LOS ANGELES – Championship habits and obsession.
All training camp long, head coach JJ Redick repeated these statements to the team, the media and anyone who would listen. But none of those words reflected the actions the Lakers displayed in their home opener, a 119-109 loss to the Warriors.
The result, while disappointing, shouldn’t have been a shocker because it looked exactly like every preseason game.
Fans saw a disjointed offense where only Luka Dončić shined. He ended the night with a whopping
43 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists.
They also saw a defense that allowed the Warriors to shoot 42.5% from 3-point range. And the final cherry on this disappointing sundae was the third-quarter Lakers making an appearance.
Los Angeles was a -124 in the third quarter last season, the eighth-worst point differential in the NBA. In the preseason, they were outscored in all six contests in the third period.
So, what happened when the regular season began? Was a flip magically switched that righted all the wrongs?
No.
Instead, it was more of the same.
The Warriors came out and punched the Lakers square in the face, going on a 17-4 run before Los Angeles called for time. A one-point deficit quickly became a 17-point margin that LA never recovered from.
“The trend I see is that we continue to be a terrible third quarter team,” Redick said postgame. “That was last year, that was the preseason. Got to rethink some things. It’s a two-way thing with the guys. What do they need to have time to make sure they’re ready to play? They’re not ready to play to start the third quarter.”
If the Lakers had the answers to their third-quarter woes, they’d have fixed them by now. The reality, however, is that this team just hasn’t had the game reps needed to have worked everything out.
“This is probably the second game we actually played together with everybody,” Rui Hachimura said. “We’re still trying to get our rhythm. We had a lot of practices, but also in the game…especially against the Golden State, they’ve been playing together for probably four or five years. I think that was the difference. Other than that, I think we did a lot of things that we’re supposed to do and it’s a process. We’re going to get there.”
Not having everything together in Game 1 of 82 is understandable. Wasting away six preseason games where that chemistry could’ve been built is not.
Those were the opportunities where Redick could’ve tinkered with multiple lineups, tried out different things against NBA teams that are actually going to try and stop it.
No rational person would ask the Lakers to take all six preseason games with the same intensity as the regular season. But the Lakers had just a single game with their starting lineup and rotation available.
Was that such a tough ask for a team that was ousted in five games in the first round and added a new starting big and two rotation players to their roster? The lack of availability of players wasn’t because of injuries, either. Marcus Smart and Gabe Vincent were limited in the first week of training camp before being fully cleared the rest of the preseason.
This was an active choice by the Lakers to prioritize player health over building chemistry, even if it was just the preseason. On Tuesday, everyone in the rotation — sans LeBron James, obviously — was healthy…and they looked like a team playing their second game together.
“I think it’s time,” Austin Reaves said. “We haven’t had a lot of time together as a complete group. Obviously, we’re still not complete, but we’re just going to continue to build and get better and learn how to play alongside one another.”
Instead of treating the games that don’t matter a bit more seriously and get more time together, now the team is going to struggle in the games that do matter. After Tuesday’s loss, they play the Wolves on Friday, the first of two meetings in the next four games.
The Lakers were always going to have an uphill battle to start the season between integrating new pieces and doing so without LeBron. The preseason could have given the team a chance at a head start.
But their unserious approach put them behind the eight ball from the jump this season.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
