{"id":323691,"date":"2025-10-22T11:28:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T11:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/323691\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T11:28:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T11:28:19","slug":"lakers-opening-act-falls-flat-and-raises-concerns-about-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/323691\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers’ opening act falls flat and raises concerns about the future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The extraordinary athlete stepped on to the Crypto.com court baseline during the first quarter of the Lakers<\/a> season opener Tuesday night amid great buzz.<\/p>\n

When his smiling face was later shown on the video board, he was enveloped in the night\u2019s loudest individual cheers.<\/p>\n

Luka Doncic<\/a>? LeBron James?<\/p>\n

No, Blake Snell.<\/p>\n

One game under the unofficial Dodger regime, and the Lakers are already showing their new owners what they are missing.<\/p>\n

They need more Dodgers.<\/p>\n

With injured and bespectacled James watching stoically from the end of the Laker bench while new owner Mark Walter was witnessing the same mess in a baseline seat nearby, the Lakers stumbled their way to a 119-109 loss<\/a> to the Golden State Warriors.<\/p>\n

Yes, they have Doncic, and he was awesome with 43 points. And, yes, they have a stronger Austin Reaves, and he was decent with 26 points and nine assists.<\/p>\n

But, no, they don\u2019t have the Dodger-like depth required to survive without James, even though the guy is 40, and the next couple of weeks while he is dealing with his sciatica are going to feel like forever.<\/p>\n

On a night when nothing lit up the room like the sight of Bill Hader hanging with Ali Wong, the welcome mat to a new season was frayed, stained, and contained a message that began something like this: Nineteen turnovers, nine missed free throws, three second-chance baskets\u2026 <\/p>\n

New center Deandre Ayton? He only had two offensive rebounds. Reliable Rui Hachimura? He barely showed up, not taking his second shot until late in the second quarter and scoring on only three treys.<\/p>\n

Newcomers Marcus Smart and Jake LaRavia provided some of the expected energy but Smart had three turnovers and LaRavia made just two shots.<\/p>\n

Contrast this with a Golden State team that had all of its players, and got great use of all of them, four dudes in double figures and Steph Curry not required to score in the fourth quarter until the final minute.<\/p>\n

The Warriors are a clear championship contending team. If the Lakers can\u2019t play any better without their aging wonder, they will contend for zilch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to forget about LeBron, [but] the reality is, when you\u2019re focused on the group that you have, you\u2019ve got to make the group work,\u201d said Coach JJ Redick afterward. \u201cI\u2019ll be honest with you, I did have one moment in that first half when we had a few possessions when we couldn\u2019t score against the zone and I thought, \u2018It\u2019d be great to have LeBron.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Austin <\/p>\n

Austin Reaves drives against Golden State\u2019s Quinten Post in the second half Tuesday.<\/p>\n

(Eric Thayer\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The Lakers actually hung in there for a half, trailing by one after two quarters, but then they totally collapsed in the third quarter, as they have done often under Redick.<\/p>\n

They were outscored 18-4 at the start of the second half, sending the crowd into a coma and the game toward the trash until they surged back within six in the final minutes.<\/p>\n

What on earth is happening in that locker room at halftime? Apparently nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trend I see is that we continue to be a terrible third-quarter team\u2026that was last year, that was the preseason,\u201d said Redick. \u201cGotta rethink some things and it\u2019s, you know, a two-way thing with the guys. What do they need at halftime to make sure they\u2019re ready to play? They\u2019re not ready to play to start the third quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it turns out, they weren\u2019t ready to play in those final minutes either, when they couldn\u2019t overcome that six-point deficit because they couldn\u2019t get out of their own way.<\/p>\n

In a stretch in the final minutes, Draymond Green hit a three, Reaves missed a free throw, Jimmy Butler sank a wide open layup, Butler made two free throws after being fouled on another wide-open layup, and Gary Payton II dunked. Game over.<\/p>\n

Redick didn\u2019t want to credit Golden State, and judging from the number of groans from a crowd that didn\u2019t stick around until the end, it\u2019s hard to blame him.<\/p>\n

\u201cA microcosm of this game was, we did enough good things to put ourselves in a position to win for most of the game,\u201d said Redick. \u201cAnd when we didn\u2019t do those things, they were self-inflicted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such as?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not being organized in early offense,\u201d said Redick. \u201cThat\u2019s having the wrong guy bring it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was just getting started.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot sprinting back,\u201d he said. \u201cWe make a run, we got two guys back, Buddy Hield gets a wide-open three for some reason on a full-court pass. Those are self-inflicted things. So it\u2019s not anything Golden State did to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sounds even worse than it looked.<\/p>\n

Before the game, Redick stressed the need for the Lakers role players to be their best.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need our guys to star in their roles,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that changes if LeBron is in the lineup or out of the lineup. We need our guys to star in their roles.\u201d<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t happen Tuesday. In fact, most of the game consisted of three guys standing around while Doncic fired or Reaves drove.<\/p>\n

How boring. How baffling. How scary.<\/p>\n

The evening began with a midcourt greeting from Doncic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gonna be a very exciting season,\u201d he proclaimed.<\/p>\n

Not so fast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The extraordinary athlete stepped on to the Crypto.com court baseline during the first quarter of the Lakers season…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":323692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,161639,33255,1910,161640,23590,25875,3360,2961,8604,3363,224,5337,3365,6475,134317,9099,17823,73837],"class_list":{"0":"post-323691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-final-minute","11":"tag-free-throw","12":"tag-game","13":"tag-golden-state-warrior","14":"tag-guy","15":"tag-jake-laravia","16":"tag-jimmy-butler","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-lakers","19":"tag-lebron-james","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-luka-doncic","23":"tag-night","24":"tag-redick","25":"tag-room","26":"tag-thing","27":"tag-turnover"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115417586634969832","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}