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The Lakers entered this week in a similar situation they were in last year.
They’re opening the regular season against one of their in-state rivals, the Warriors, after a pair of preseason matchups earlier in October.
But because of the nature of preseason NBA basketball, they couldn’t lean too much on the game film in preparation for Wedneday’s opener at Crypto.com Arena.
The Lakers were without a significant chunk of their rotation in the first exhibition against the Warriors on Oct. 6 in San Francisco, with Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves and Walker Kessler among the several players who didn’t suit up for the matchup at Chase Center during the first week of preseason.
One week later, Kessler made his preseason debut and Reaves scored a preseason-high 28 points in Las Vegas, but the Warriors were without Draymond Green, Al Horford and Kristaps Porzingis.
And star guard Steph Curry only played 23 minutes, with Kessler only playing in the first half and Reaves also only playing through a chunk of the third quarter.
So the game tape from those matchups don’t provide too much insight into what to expect Wednesday.
“We’ll do a normal scout,” coach JJ Redick said of his team’s regular season opener. “There’s segments of the game where they’re playing their rotation guys, [we’re] playing our rotation guys, where you can look and glean some stuff from that. And we will. Obviously you look at how they have played historically and what they’ve been good at. So there’ll be a combination of the two.”
Historically, the Warriors are a known commodity even as they become a “fading dynasty”, as Steve Kerr put it last Decemeber.
Their post-split actions will continue to confuse defenses.
Green will quarterback the defense.
And Curry’s historical 3-point shooting will bend the court in ways no other player in NBA history can.
But they’re no longer the juggernaut they once were.
What the Warriors are though is a team that forces teams into mistakes.
The Lakers learned this the hard way in both preseason matchups, including turning the ball over 30 times in the second exhibition last week.
While that was an extreme example, the Warriors have been top-five in defensive turnover percentage in each of the last two seasons.
Making a point of emphasis from the Lakers’ preseason even more important for them in order to open the regular season with a victory.
What the Lakers also learned from playing against the Warriors is that they can be an even better defensive team that expected.
It was a general takeaway from preseason.
“From early in September, and even kind of early training camp-ish, maybe before we played our first game, I thought we could potentially be like around an average defense,” Redick said. “Our standards for that have elevated, and we talked to the group about that. We have the chance to be a good defense. And there’s certain things that we really want to get better at from the preseason.
“The areas of focus for us, transition defense, defensive rebounding, we weren’t good. So if we get better at that, we’ll have a chance to be a pretty good defense, and that’s exciting.”