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3 in a row. Not bad

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Aloha,

The Lakers start to the season has been impressive. Not just the wins but wins against quality teams. What’s more impressive is they are doing it while trying to learn a new system. There are a lot of kinks to work out but it’s great to win while you are still trying to figure it out.

Actually the Lakers could have blown all three teams out if they hadn’t shot themselves in the foot. If we shot even 25% from 3 we would have blown the TWolves out. We had good looks, just missed. While the Suns shot an insane percentage from 3 early, the 7 early turnovers were as responsible for that 22 point deficit as the Suns shooting. And last night 19 turnovers fueled the Kings transition game. I don’t mind a turnover when it’s due to a great defensive play but I hate sloppy turnovers. Austin and LeBron accounted for 11 of them. They are both gamblers but there were just to many forced passes into tight windows. I see turnovers as our number one problem right now but it’s nice to win even when we are turning it over.

LeBron had sat back and played a supporting role in the first two games. But the Kings were determined not to let AD beat them and doubled and tripled him all night. So LeBron said fine, be that way and proceeded to score 16 points in under 3 minutes, on his way to an impressive 33 point, 14 boards and 10 assists game. He reminded the league that you have to pick your poison. You maybe able to shut one star down but not both.

And AD, 30 points. That’s 3 30 point game in a row.Considering the effort the Kings put into stopping him, those 30 points must have been disappointing for the Kings.

Rui continued his fine play with 18 points and 9 boards. He is becoming quite the master at finding seams along the baseline for easy baskets. He’s also shooting 50% from 3 so far this season. Not bad.

DLO finally broke out of his shooting slump. He is to good of a shooter not to. 3 for 6 from 3 is more like it. I think he has been the biggest victim of the new AD centric scheme. I think JJ will need to find him a few more looks a game.

Austin was Austin. He continued to rebound, defend and knock down his 3’s. Just need to take better care of the ball. Those 6 turnovers were way too many.

Max continues to struggle while Dalton continues to shine. When Vando comes back he will be the 6th man and come in for LeBron. But it very well could be Dalton coming in for Austin when he needs a break.As long as Dalton can continue to compete on defense, his offense will win him the job.

When you think of 3 point shooting, which is more important. The Lakers made 14 on 34 attempts while the Kings made 15 on 44 attempts. It’s the made number that’s important.

So it’s the Suns next to begin a 5 game road trip followed by a tough Cav’s team. Thats 5 games against contenders, one back to back and a long road trip to start the season. The schedule makers didn’t do the Lakers any favors but we are still 3 and 0. Not bad.

LeBron posts ‘surreal’ triple-double in Lakers’ comeback win over Kings

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LeBron James posted his first triple-double of the season, including 16 points in the fourth quarter, as the Los Angeles Lakers improved to 3-0 for the first time since 2010-11 with a 131-127 defeat of the Sacramento Kings on Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena.

James finished with 32 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists. All three marks were season highs for the 39-year-old in his 22nd season.

“Just when you think he’s slowing down, man, he continues to show the world why he’s the greatest,” Anthony Davis said of James’ performance. “To go on that stretch, he actually looked to the bench and was trying to come out the game. We told him, ‘You’re not coming out.’ He comes out and hits another 3. He never ceases to amaze any of us because we just know what he’s capable of.”

After leading the Kings by as many as 15 points in the first half, Sacramento roared back and took a seven-point lead heading into the fourth quarter. Then James took over.

“I guess a little bit of everything,” James said of what was working for him in the fourth quarter. “I caught a rhythm, had my outside shot going, got a couple ones in the paint as well. Got a backdoor from DLo (D’Angelo Russell) that worked well. So just trying to see what I had going to help us get us over the hump on this back-to-back.”

James scored his 16 fourth-quarter points over a two-minute and 59-second stretch. Entering the game, he scored just 16 and 21 points, respectively, over Los Angeles’ first two wins.

Lakers coach JJ Redick called the experience of watching James in the fourth quarter “surreal.”

“What can you say?” Redick said. “We’ve all been very fortunate to watch his greatness for so long and the fact that he’s able to keep doing it, it’s just, it’s actually insane. It’s actually insane.”

Davis added 31 points and grabbed nine rebounds. He’s scored 30 or more points in all three games this season.

The last time the Lakers beat the Kings was on Jan. 7, 2023 — 658 days ago. They had lost five games in a row and eight of nine against Sacramento. At 3-0, this is the best start for the Lakers since the 2010-11 season, when they started 8-0.

“We’ve been able to hold our own and put the league on notice that we’re a different team,” Davis said.

These Lakers Already Feel Different

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The 2023-24 Los Angeles Lakers underachieved to the point of frustration. Head coach Darvin Ham wasted a year of good health from Anthony Davis and LeBron James to build a monument against spacing. They were immensely talented, but profoundly rudderless. Outschemed at every turn, the Lakers were passive in everything they did and deserved their first-round loss to the Denver Nuggets. But under new head coach JJ Redick, this year’s squad plays more inspired basketball, which is a step in the right direction.

The Lakers are off to a 3-0 start, with wins against three teams that finished ahead of them in the West last season. Each victory has allowed them an opportunity to flash different strengths. In the 110-103 season-opener win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, the defense played perfectly, forcing Anthony Edwards to either take tough shots or dump it off to Rudy Gobert or Julius Randle in space. On offense, the Lakers fed Anthony Davis, who came into the season after a great run at the Olympics, looking slimmer and bouncier. Davis is too skilled to be stuck in the corner or set a bunch of meaningless screens. Instead, his team has prioritized getting him the ball in situations where he can make quick decisions.

Davis can be a high-level passer, even if he didn’t get to show it off much last season. Coached by Ham, the Lakers ran a Stone Age offense: One guy would do one thing, and everyone else sort of stood around. What Redick has introduced is more in line with today’s game but feels groundbreaking just by comparison. The Lakers move the ball quickly and decisively, with great spacing around the primary action. Redick has them running beautiful sets, and even when they lean more heavily into James creating out of simple pick-and-rolls, the team seems more dedicated to passing and moving then they ever did under Ham. After years of constipated ball movement, they’re fun to watch again.

In Saturday’s game against the Sacramento Kings, Davis struggled against his nemesis Domantas Sabonis. No matter. James took over in the fourth quarter, scoring 16 points and finishing with a dominant 32-point triple-double in a 131-127 victory. The scoring barrage forced Sacramento to bend its defense toward James, and on the two most critical plays of a tremendous scoring run, he made the simple play: a pass out of a double team for a Davis three to extend the lead, and a dump-off for a Rui Hachimura dunk to seal the win.

It’s remarkable that the Lakers feel like a new team despite only minor changes to the roster. Gabe Vincent has recovered from a knee injury, and rookie Dalton Knecht has looked confident and springy, but there was no total overhaul this summer. The logical next step is to look at the difference in coaching. Designing complicated plays and running a sophisticated offense is great, but it doesn’t take a genius to determine that Anthony Davis should get the ball often. Doing the simple things right is a big part of coaching, and Redick is clearly very competent. As Kings head coach Mike Brown kept his best defender Keon Ellis on the bench last night, Redick gassed his players up and maintained pressure.