The Los Angeles Lakers welcomed their prized offseason addition, Walker Kessler, to the floor in Tuesday night’s contest against the Golden State Warriors as the 25-year-old center made his preseason debut. During 16 first-half minutes, he recorded 11 points (4-of-6 shooting), nine rebounds, one assist, one block and one steal before sitting out the second half.
With Kessler on the floor in the first half, the Lakers scored 46 points in 16 minutes. Across the 32 minutes he rested overall, they mustered
just 43 points. His pick-and-roll connection with Austin Reaves was quite effective between his vigorous dives to the rim and Reaves’ playmaking abilities. Of Reaves’s seven assists Tuesday night, four stemmed from ball-screens with Kessler, whether it be directly feeding Kessler inside or Kessler commanding extra attention to open up looks on the perimeter.
“I mean, he created probably four or five really good looks for us from three just rolling hard,” Reaves told reporters postgame. “Nobody’s going to give him credit for it, but him putting pressure on the rim and roll opportunities is going to make the X-man [on defense] sink, and we’re going to get wide open threes. We had quite a bit of them tonight.”
Kessler made clear postgame he’s still establishing his footing and timing after not playing since Halloween last year. But he already senses the stress he and Reaves can impose upon defenses out of ball-screen actions, which should also presumably extend to his partnership with Luka Dončić, who received a night off Tuesday.
“With Austin, he’s so good at making the right decision out of the pick and roll. Even if I’m not getting the ball, my roll, that corner guy cracks down and Austin’s so good at throwing that corner pass,” Kessler said. “It’s a lot of fun to play with. I think as I play more, my rhythm will kind of come back as well as kind of game sense. I mean, that first layup I made, I almost fell out of bounds. I had no footing whatsoever. But yeah, it was good to be out there.”
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