The Los Angeles Lakers started the 2019 preseason with a bang. We take a look at their victory over the Golden State Warriors and share four lessons learned.
The Los Angeles Lakers started their championship journey with a preseason game against the Golden State Warriors. The Lakers thoroughly dominated the conference champs in their new arena. Lake Show Life dusts off Lake Show Life lessons analyzing the beat-down of Golden State.
The Lakers got a chance to show their brand new franchise player in Anthony Davis on Saturday night against the five-time Western Conference champion, Golden State Warriors. What the Lakers fan base is trying to figure out now is the ceiling for Davis because he put on a Wilt Chamberlain like performance. Lakers fans, we’re talking about just the first quarter.
Anthony Davis really made the Warriors look small, scoring 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting and collecting seven rebounds. When he was on the floor with LeBron James (More on these two separately later!) the Lakers were almost unguardable.
The Warriors started small with Willie Cauley-Stein out with an injury, but it really wouldn’t have mattered in this game.
17 PTS | 7-11 FGM | 7 REB
— NBA (@NBA) October 6, 2019
Anthony Davis does it all for the @Lakers in the opening frame on @NBAonTNT! #LakeShow #NBAPreseason pic.twitter.com/A8TYID7RKy
The Lakers spoiled the grand opening of the Chase Center for the Warriors dropping them rudely 123-101. It’s difficult to say that a 20 point win doesn’t articulate the dominance of the Lakers but it really didn’t.
The Los Angeles Lakers wanted to change the identity of the team and on this night, they changed theirs and possibly showed the NBA the change in the Warriors identity. Frank Vogel brought out his big lineup with JaVale McGee, Anthony Davis and LeBron James in the frontcourt and it seemed like the Warriors were intimidated as the Lakers raced out to an 11-0 lead and led by as many as 25 points in the game.
They were so good that Magic Johnson was chilling out on Twitter to show his support on what was going on in the game.
Man, after he quit about an hour before the season finale against the Blazers or the First Take interview, did anyone see this coming?
Laker Nation, I just watched Lebron and Anthony Davis put on a show in the 1st quarter of the Lakers vs. Warriors exhibition game. Watch out rest of the NBA!
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) October 6, 2019
The rest of the preseason work will be centered around the lineups Vogel puts in around Davis and LeBron when one is off the floor. Some of the lineups proved that Vogel will be tinkering with the lineups, like a lot. Something he shared with ESPN.
"“We’re going to mix it up every night throughout the preseason and potentially into the season,” Vogel said before the game. “The guys are going to have opportunities to start just to see different (combinations). The preseason is just about combinations.”"
One combination that Vogel used that raised a few eyebrows was seeing Troy Daniels in the game before Alex Caruso, who did not play in the first half. It did work for the most part with Daniels leading the bench with 14 points on 6-of-11 shooting. What’s more important is that he dropped a couple of 3-pointers with one coming from “Curry land”.
With the constant flash around Alex Caruso this offseason, it will be interesting how he will be used. He had a plus/minus of +17, scoring 10 points, dishing out six assists and grabbed three rebounds.
https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1180661394724675584
Even though Caruso played well, Lake Show Life has already laid out questions about the expectations Caruso should be handled.
The Lakers will have a long, but happy flight to China to play the Brooklyn Nets twice. The first game will be on October 10th. But that’s next week.
Let’s talk Lake Show Life lessons of Saturday night.
The NBA world does not know how good Anthony Davis is. Nobody can stop a motivated Anthony Davis.
Earlier this week, Paul George said on the record that he and Kawhi Leonard was the best duo in the NBA. For his sake, his eyes really needed to be glued to the TV set watching this game.
He’s wrong. The Lakers may not have the best team 1-15 but they will destroy the Clippers when it comes to the best two players on the team.
Stephen A. Smith stated on First Take that Kawhi Leonard is not better than LeBron James. He’s wrong, Kawhi is better, period. Here’s the scary thing, it doesn’t matter. That’s because Anthony Davis is better than Kawhi Leonard. Anthony Davis’ skill and athleticism with the hunger to win completely eliminates this argument.
Anthony Davis almost outscored the Golden State Warriors by himself in the first quarter. The Warriors outlasted him 20-17. He had five dunks and ran the Warriors big men off the floor.
https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1180645823488462848
In a blink, if you missed it a moment, Davis had three dunks in as many possessions in a 43-second span.
One was off an offensive rebound from a Danny Green miss.
Another was from a Rajon Rondo, LeBron to Davis pass combination and the last one was off of a smooth as butter alley-oop from Rondo.
Anthony Davis finished the night with 22 points and 10 rebounds in 18 minutes. With the energy and focus Davis had on the floor, he could have scored 50 and grabbed 25 boards. He led the Lakers dominant onslaught on the boards as the team outrebounded the Warriors 58-47.
The messages sent around the NBA was the Lakers, not the Clippers, own the best 1-2 punch in the NBA and Davis is staking his claim as the best player in the world.
If LeBron James continues to play this way all season, the Los Angeles Lakers will make the NBA Finals.
In between the 543 times that Chris Webber and Reggie Miller mentioning that LeBron James was in his 17th year, Lakers fans will finally understand the true intentions of LeBron James and how badly he wants to win.
The story surrounding the Los Angeles Lakers will be the performance of Anthony Davis looking like he was a man amongst boys. But LeBron James played just as well but in a different way. He played efficiently and for now, kept his promise of making sure that Anthony Davis will be the focal point of the offense.
That’s not to say that LeBron James did not put in work. LeBron filled the stat sheet, scoring 15 points and grabbed three rebounds with eight assists. But this play here was few and far in between last year.
https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1180652577140031488
LeBron James was matched up with Stephen Curry in what Shaquille O’Neal calls a “Barbecue Chicken Alert” and showed his strength powering the ball up with basically the entire Warriors team around him.
The media is going to push the MVP narrative around LeBron James in the “Revenge Season” that is supposed to happen this season. For the record, it had better work. It just depends on what type of revenge does LeBron James wants. Numbers or a title? The TNT announcers mentioned his stats time after time ignoring the fact that his defense was non-existent at times.
As the season goes along, the NBA world will know if James wants the revenge that stats show or does he want the NBA title that commands change in his game?
JaVale McGee or Dwight Howard? Who starts? Who cares.
If Anthony Davis keeps playing as he did in the preseason opener, the centers Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee will be counted on to be the two-headed monster in the middle doing the little things. Against the Warriors, they did not disappoint.
JaVale McGee had a double-double, scoring 10 points while grabbing 13 rebounds. He looked focused as he helped his frontcourt teammates, Anthony Davis and LeBron James, intimidate the Warriors at the rim.
Outside of Stephen Curry (Because he’s Steph Curry!) the starting lineup of Golden State looked like a team that was allergic to the paint. The long rebounds early in the game got the Lakers started on an 11-0 run to start the game.
Remember that run JaVale went on last year when the man literally couldn’t miss? Against the Warriors, McGee was perfect from the field, hitting all five of his shots. But this play right here is what makes the Lakers the bullies of the Staples Center.
https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1180640327104782336
Watch what JaVale McGee does on this play. When Danny Green missed the 3-pointer from the corner, McGee completely boxes out Draymond Green from getting the ball. It’s almost if Green disappeared. It allows Anthony Davis to get the offensive rebound and slam it home.
Plays like this will make the Lakers a dominant offensive rebounding team, which they were in this game, collecting 16. Extra possessions, with the firepower of this team, means trouble for the NBA.
Dwight Howard played the majority of his minutes in garbage time but he was active scoring nine points and corralled nine rebounds. He still looked stiff at times, but that probably will fade when he gets the pace and timing down along with trusting his back more.
Frank Vogel will have to get the backcourt situation straight before he gets back to the States.
Most will say that this is the first preseason game and chill out. Sure it’s the first game, but the season starts in 16 days of this writing. The backcourt is jam-packed at this point and if Frank Vogel is trying to keep his intentions hidden, mission accomplished.
Rajon Rondo:
Rajon Rondo and Anthony Davis play very well together. They need minutes because the chemistry traveled with them from New Orleans. Plus, if Rondo can knock down a couple of shots from distance as he did against the Warriors and play occasional defense, he’ll need minutes.
Avery Bradley only played 13 minutes and scored the same amount of points as Lakers fans did watching him. Sure, his defense is the talk of training camp, but he has to at least give something on the offensive end. Zero points won’t cut it. Starters score.
I think Lakers fans have seen this movie before. Two points that included a missed layup at point-blank range. Most LeBron James led teams make trades around the deadline for playoff runs. KCP was bad enough to make a bid to be out on the trade block.
He played this bad in the preseason last year and it carried over into the regular season. He doesn’t have the luxury of the Lakers waiting for him to get out of long shooting slumps. They don’t have the time and they have plenty of options.
A special shout out to the NBA point guard icon and Hall of Famer, John Stockton. He watched his son David score his first points as a Laker. He finished with three points and one assist. He just got signed late last week.
The Lakers have signed guard David Stockton, son of Hall of Famer John Stockton.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) October 4, 2019
Carmelo Anthony fans can start the conspiracy theories now.
The Los Angeles Lakers have started their championship journey. Lake Show Life will along for the wild ride giving you the most in-depth complete analysis and coverage. Keep it locked with us.