After a dominant performance in the preseason opener in Sacramento, the Lakers head to San Francisco for the second night of a back-to-back against the Warriors on Tuesday.
This will also be the second game of three in four nights.
Start time and TV schedule
Who: Los Angeles Lakers vs. Golden State Warriors
When: 7:00 p.m. PT
Where: Chase Center
Watch: Spectrum SportsNet, NBA TV
Things could hardly have gone better for LA in their first preseason game against the Kings on Monday.
A dominant stretch in the second quarter highlighted
a comprehensive first-half beatdown before a much more relaxed second half. Still, it was a very encouraging game from the Lakers after a summer that created a lot of intrigue and excitement.
Two of the most intriguing takeaways were the team’s 3-point shooting and the turnovers forced.
Offensively, they hit 20 3-pointers, surpassing their high in makes (19) from last year’s regular season. Granted, they won’t shoot 45.5% with any sort of regularity during the season, but head coach JJ Redick’s penchant for spacing and shooting means the attempts will likely increase this season.
On the other side of the ball, the team forced a staggering 27 turnovers that they turned into 32 points. Again, this was certainly an outlier performance exacerbated by the Kings being a truly awful basketball team. Still, the activity level defensively was noticeable.
Both Ziaire Williams and Matise Thybulle were jumping into passing lanes and deflecting passes. And once the team gets into transition, they have a lot more athletes this season to really punish teams on the break.
The rest of the preseason will determine if either of these is merely an aberration or a new identity for the Lakers.
Lastly, let’s take an extra moment to laugh at the Kings.
Injury updates and notes
- On top of it being a back-to-back, teams aren’t required to list injury reports in the preseason.
- Austin Reaves, Walker Kessler, Collin Sexton and Arthur Kaluma all did not play in the team’s win over the Kings. We’ll see if any of them return on Tuesday.
- On the flip side, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Luka sit on Tuesday after playing the first half on Monday’s game.
- The Warriors will be without Jimmy Butler, Moses Moody and Kristpas Porzingis.
- We have an exciting new feature in our app this season. It’s easier than ever to chat in our game threads. Each game, this post will become a live chat and will be easy to find at the top of the Lakers community page, so be sure to download the app and give it a try this preseason!
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
