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LOS ANGELES — In a season opener to forget, the Warriors were boat-raced out of Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday night in a 127-105 loss to the Lakers.
New offense, same old Steph
Any concern that Curry was at less than full strength after tweaking his ankle in an open practice last week should have evaporated by the end of the first quarter, if not earlier. He was just as smooth an operator as ever, even while breaking in a new, five-out offensive system.
Curry finished with 23, including 16 of their first 21 when he took a seat for the first time at the 4:24 mark of the first quarter. The new system did nothing to disrupt his chemistry with Draymond Green, who assisted on three of his first-quarter buckets and dished out eight total.
The Warriors were efficient when Curry was on the floor, but the new system didn’t make up for the playmakers that they continue to lack when he takes a seat on the bench.
The clean, crisp basketball that Steve Kerr strives for was on display as the Warriors kept it within 1 through the first quarter, turning the ball over just once to 10 assists while creating efficient looks to knock down 13 of 24 attempts from the floor.
From the second quarter on, however, it was more of the same sloppy, stuck-in-the-mud offense that too often plagued them last season. They finished 37-for-91 (41%) from the field — just 8-for-36 from 3 (22%) — and still ended up coughing up the rock 16 times for 25 points.
Warriors played big and were still too small
With Kristaps Porzingis out for who knows how long and backup center Charles Bassey also missing with knee tendinitis, the Warriors simply had no answer for Walker Kessler.
The 7-foot-2 center was a regular recipient of lobs from Luka Doncic and mixed in a handful of ferocious putbacks dunks. On his way to finishing a perfect 12-for-12 for 26 points with nine rebounds, both game-highs, Kessler slammed home all his first 11 buckets — the most dunks in one game by a Lakers player since prime Shaquille O’Neal, according to ESPN’s research.
Without Porzingis, the Warriors are going to have to deal with a size disparity at center against more than just the Lakers, and Kerr offered a clue as to his plan to make up for it.
With Brandin Podziemski dealing with low back soreness, De’Anthony Melton took his spot in the starting lineup alongside Curry, Green, Gui Santos and rookie Yaxel Lendeborg.
Kerr made it a point to match Curry and Green’s substitution patterns to keep them on the court together. When they came off, the Warriors went as big as they could:
Brandon Williams was the only guard on the floor with Al Horford, Georges Niang, Santos and Lendeborg. But they were too small and unathletic enough to keep the Lakers in check.
They allowed Los Angeles to score 21 fast-break points, 15 second-chance points and shot 57% from the field.
Lendeborg’s loud introduction
The Warriors should hope that all anybody remembers from opening night is their first-round pick’s moxie to pick a fight with the league’s nastiest trash talker.
Doncic got the last laugh (and a few more), but Lendeborg never backed down. He got into Doncic’s face after getting baited into a shooting foul, and he kept talking all the way down the floor after denying Doncic on a step-back 3-pointer — leading to his first career technical.
Lendeborg’s 6-foot-9 frame and even more sizeable confidence allowed him to fit right in, but there were also painfully clear signs that he was playing his first career NBA game.
No. 1 might have been igniting Doncic, who went off for 28 points while getting to the foul line nine times.
But the film will also show Lendeborg driving into multiple defenders with no clear plan on a couple possessions, a few missed defensive assignments and him looking left and right trying to find where Kessler came from after flying over him for a putback dunk.