The Lakers are “ready” for the season opener despite a poor preseason performance against the Warriors

After his first preseason win against the Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick had to battle his team against the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night in Las Vegas.

There is always a little more motivation between the Lakers and the Warriors when they face each other, but in the end it was the latter who emerged victorious as they defeated the former 111-97.

Anthony Davis was the highlight of the night for Los Angeles as he dominated the game on both ends, leading all players with 24 and 12 points and rebounds, respectively. He shot an impressive 10 of 14 from the field, even though the rest of the team had major problems with his shooting technique.

Even though the Lakers only shot 35.8 percent from the field, Redick said he was pleased with the shots the team was able to get.

“The shots we took gave me a lot of encouragement,” Redick said. “Very encouraging. That's when we didn't trust our offense and faltered a little bit and the ball got stuck. That was the beginning of this quarter. I think we had 19 points in the third period and AD had eight of four consecutive possessions in iso ball, which I called those plays because AD didn't touch it. That was just because we didn't have a good offense in that quarter. “That happens sometimes and it’s a growth opportunity, a learning lesson for our group.

“Our execution, ball movement, passing, all that stuff, and I'll look at it again, but I thought it was great in the first half, we just weren't making shots. And that's human nature, it's a tendency of groups, of players, I've lived it, I've lived a lot of these things, so in some ways I have experience with it. You stop trusting him and start thinking, 'I have to get on my way.' I have to get on my way.' We don't want to play like that, and that's okay. It happens. We will get better. I was very happy with the type and look of the shots we produced. Given their size and the fact that Draymond is an accomplished player, this wouldn't be a difficult rim game for us. That just wasn’t the case, so I just thought at the start of the third period I didn’t like the way we played.”

Interestingly, Redick believes his group is ready for opening night despite the obvious hurdles to clear.

“We are ready. Just continue to build trust with what we do,” Redick added.

“I'll watch it again. But our roles off the ball were very clear, they are very clear. We practiced that, we worked on it again today. When we made things up, they hurt us. So you just have to trust him. I thought our guys, when they were in the lock-and-trail and watching and following our off-ball screening rules, they did a really good job. And when they didn't, they hurt us. They got layups, they got three open balls and that's the biggest thing. There are some things, we'll continue to clean up some things in the transition defense that weren't particularly good. If you look at it, you can see how we really just make mistakes in our off-ball rules. This gave them 52 points in the paint. And that's what this team does, that's what the Warriors do. You have to trust what you’re doing defensively.”

With the season opener against the Minnesota Timberwolves less than a week away, Redick will need to use these final two preseason games to ensure they are indeed ready.

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