LOS ANGELES — The Lakers really ought to send the Dodgers some flowers.
Congratulations are in order for a second consecutive World Series berth, of course.
But also, gratitude.
A thank you to the Boys in Blue for taking L.A.’s full focus off of the Lake Show for at least another week. The Dodgers have created a notable distraction while JJ Redick and crew figure out how to play basketball without LeBron James.
Sciatica made James miss the first season opener in his illustrious 23-season career Tuesday. Instead of making his presence felt on the floor, he sat courtside on his elevated throne at the end of the bench beside Bronny.
Turns out that even with super-duper-star Luka Doncic holding the reins and his gold No. 77s visible everywhere you looked at Crypto.com Arena, the Lakers really miss LeBron.
How do we know? Because the Golden State Warriors – a very good, veteran team that also happens to be starting the season intact – were so much better than the LeBron-less Lakers.
James’ injury will keep him out for at least another eight games, through Nov. 5 at best – by which time the World Series will be over.
And the Lakers could, by then, be in an uncomfortable hole in the unforgiving Western Conference. They will be, if they can’t clean up basically every aisle.
Because Tuesday’s opener was a mess. Golden State baited the Lakers, pureed the Lakers, outplayed and eventually beat the Lakers, 119-109, as $52.6 million of their rostered salary sat courtside. As 42,184 regular-season points watched quietly from the wings. As their sky-high-IQ quarterback who’s usually barking out plays on defense sat, suited up … looking sharp, in a suit.
“It’s hard to forget about LeBron,” Redick said Monday night. “The reality is, when you’re focused on the group that you have, you’ve got to make that group work.
“[But] sometimes you can just be like, ‘Oh my god, we’re gonna get LeBron back at some point, it’s awesome.’ And I’ll be honest with you, I did have one moment that first half when we had a few possessions we couldn’t score against the zone, ‘Oh, it’d be great to have LeBron to just throw it to at the high post …’”
Without that option, the Lakers could always play worse than they did Tuesday. But not much.
The half of the glass that’s not yet full represents all the room there is to improve.
And it might not matter where they start, but they definitely need to chop down on turnovers, of which there were 20. They’ll need to lock in at the free-throw line – going 17 of 28 in a game they lost by 10 is the definition of self-inflicted pain.
They will need to dial up the discipline, but no one has to tell Redick that. The second-year coach sounded a little like a kid with a long Christmas list after the loss, rattling off all the areas where the Lakers ought to improve.
“Mostly self-inflicted,” Redick said. “That’s not being organized in early offense; that’s having the wrong guy bring it up … that’s not sprinting back; we make a run, we have two guys back, Buddy Hield makes a wide-open 3 for some reason on a full-court pass. … Steph Curry gets a back-cut for a layup, Gary Payton slips and gets a dunk, we don’t [handle] a small-small pick-and-roll …”
The list went on. But the theme was all too apparent: The Warriors got what they wanted much more easily than the Lakers did.
Doncic’s volume of output was impressive; his 43 points were the most in an opener since Kobe Bryant kicked off the 2007-08 season with 45.
But a LeBron-less Lakers team isn’t beating quality opponents with just Doncic and Austin Reaves, who had 26 points, doing all the heavy lifting. Besides, both of them looked bedraggled by the end of the game, exhausted and hobbling like they were sweating out Game 7 of a playoff series and not Game 1 of an NBA marathon.
The Lakers have got to make a point of finding points in other places, because they’re not winning tough games with only two players accounting for more than 63% of their points.
That will take getting going Deandre Ayton, who in his Lakers debut had to deal with future Hall-of-Fame defender Draymond Green but finished 5 for 7 from the field and had 12 points.
And by finding more ways to incorporate Rui Hachimura, who made 3 of his 6 attempts – all of them coming from 3-point range – for nine points.
“Obviously, when you’re missing a guy like ’Bron, you’re not going to fill that with one person,” Reaves said. “I have to do something a little better, Luka needs to do a little better, Rui’s gotta pitch in a little more. Like, you can’t do what [James] does with one person.”
But Redick, for some reason, seemed satisfied with the forward’s shot diet when he was asked about what he wants to see from Hachimura in James’ absence: “We’re not gonna ask a guy to change their role because someone’s out of the lineup.”
The Lakers are going to have to square that cylinder, and figure out how they’re supposed to do more with less without tasking players like Hachimura with doing more.
And they’ll have to figure it out fast, with two of their next four games coming against the Minnesota Timberwolves team that ran them out of the playoffs in the first round last season, and with the West being so wildly competent.
As Warriors coach Steve Kerr put it before tipoff: “The West is loaded; you can’t mess around too much. Even though it’s a long season, you have to find the best version of yourself as quickly as you can.”
Or, in the Lakers’ case, the best version of themselves without one of the game’s all-time best players in the lineup.