Lakers' LeBron James, Anthony Davis get crucial preseason updates
10/05/2024 06:39 PM
With the NBA preseason now underway, the Los Angeles Lakers are set to play the Phoenix Suns on Sunday night. Not only that, but they’ll be at full strength.
The Lakers’ full starting five will play, via Spectrum SportsNet’s Mike Trudell.
“LeBron said the plan for him is to play tomorrow against Phoenix in Palm Springs,” Trudell reported. “JJ Redick said he expects Anthony Davis to play as well, so we should see the full expected starting 5.”
Los Angeles lost 124-107 to the Minnesota Timberwolves in its preseason opener on Friday, which was also head coach JJ Redick’s debut. However, James and Davis were held out.
The Lakers will play the Suns at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert, California. How will James and Davis mesh with Los Angeles’ young players?
The Lakers’ supporting cast must step up
Los Angeles has plenty of time, but this game is an opportunity to clean up its mistakes from the Minnesota contest. Redick aired his grievances, via Lakers Nation’s Daniel Starkand.
"There's a lot that stood out," the rookie coach said. "I think if you just look at the game in its entirety, we got destroyed in the possession battle. Turnovers and offensive rebounds. I think they took 15 more shots than us. In some ways, that's the game right there.”
However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom.
"Having said that, I think there was a lot of good stuff that we did. I told our guys before the game three things I'm going to judge you on and how we are going to measure this game are organization, our talk and our level of compete,” Redick continued. “And I thought the third one, we had that at a really high level. The other two, we got to get better.”
Part of the issue is that Redick needs more time to instill defensive schemes, but James’ and Davis’ inclusion in the lineup should give a more clear picture of where the team stands.
“I think schematically defensively. We can do some things better,” Reddick repeated. “This was not a game-plan game for us. There was some stuff that, frankly, in three days of practice in walkthrough and shootaround, you are just not going to be able to cover.”
With James and Davis both still quality defenders, they’ll inevitably help. However, young players like Dalton Knecht and Jalen-Hood Schifino must step up for Los Angeles to thrive.
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