Biggest Preseason Issue the Warriors Can't Afford to Ignore (and How Lakers Exposed It)

Austin Reaves exposed the Golden State Warriors defense last night while helping the Los Angeles Lakers build a 20-point third-quarter lead.

That the Warriors came back to win 101-89 feels less important than Golden State's biggest preseason issue, which has been point-of-attack defense. (Note: Turning the ball over is a close second.)

Let's go over how the Lakers exposed the Warriors' poor on-ball defense before addressing what they can do to fix it from a personnel perspective.

Breaking Down 4 Reaves Drives That Were Too Easy

In 25 minutes, Reaves had 28 points on 10-of-18 shooting with seven assists and seven turnovers. The Warriors deserve credit for swarming him into a high-turnover game, but the bigger-picture issue is how often they gave up easy drives, especially considering Reaves was the only major threat with Luka Doncic resting.

The first defensive mistake came from Curry. Any time you're in a ball-screen situation at the point-of-attack defender, the first rule is to be ready if the offensive player rejects the screen. Curry was not ready:

Perhaps Draymond Green would have prevented a Reaves layup if he were playing center instead of Bassey, but the bigger picture here is a Warriors point-of-attack defender giving up a drive that could've been avoided.

This second one shows that Lendeborg has a lot to learn:

This is especially concerning because it's a play any team can run with any quick guard. Lendeborg has to figure out how to avoid giving up blow-by drives.

The third shows Reaves tricking Bassey with a pass fake before finishing with an impressive scoop shot:

It's not clear if Will Richard is funneling Reaves to his left, but Reaves got way too much space after rejecting the screen.

The fourth shows Lendeborg not being on the same page as Gary Payton II and Brandin Podziemski:

Lendeborg has to cut off that Reaves drive and then sink back to be ready for Walker Kessler diving to the basket. It's not a particularly complicated defensive play for a traditional center, but Lendeborg is not a traditional center.

The throughline of all four plays is getting Lendeborg or Bassey in space and then driving to the basket.

To be fair, Bassey had some good defensive reps against the Lakers. But he's not the type of defensive anchor who can handle having his point-of-attack defenders constantly giving up dribble penetration.

What the Warriors Can Do to Improve Defense

The Warriors don't have the personnel to have a great POA defense overnight, but they do have some things they can do mask the issue.

The most obvious solution is getting De'Anthony Melton on the floor more. He's their best healthy POA defender.

He could be put in the starting lineup over Podz or Gui Santos (as I elaborated on here), but the trade-off is the offense won't be as dynamic.

Another solution is playing centers who are used to guarding in space and anchoring defenses. Essentially, that would mean Green and Al Horford would play most of the center minutes with Bassey coming in for a few here or there.

In other words, the Warriors would not have Lendeborg playing center.

Now, even when Lendeborg is at power forward, teams can still look to attack him in space. But at least in those situations, having an experienced center ready to help will prevent most easy baskets.

Neither of the ideas above completely solves the problem. Which leads us to the most radical solution: making a trade for either a) a great POA defender (preferably who offers more offense than Melton) or b) a center who can erase all sorts of POA mistakes.

These players tend to cost high-value draft capital, which the Warriors have been unwilling to give up.

Of the two, getting their hands on a dominant defensive center may be their best possible play.

Myles Turner isn't quite in the Rudy Gobert tier of defensive dominance, but getting the Bucks center would go a long way.