The Warriors and Lakers could not be more different, and that was apparent on Tuesday.
If you wanted to see an example of two franchises going in opposite directions, the Warriors-Lakers game on Tuesday night was the perfect opportunity.
On one end were the defending champions, the team winning at a historic pace, knocking down records left and right and turning every game into must-see TV.
On the other end was a team in disarray, with an inept coach, a dysfunctional locker room, yesterday’s superstar, lack of cohesion, and Roy Hibbert.
It didn’t take long for those characteristics to show on Tuesday night for the respective teams. The Warriors, eager to stake out a lead and head into cruise control, came out and started drilling threes, and the Lakers amazingly let them. Klay Thompson lit up Anthony Brown for a 22-point first quarter, and the Warriors knew to feed the hot hand, running plays for Klay and clearing space for him to get a shot off.
If you watch the Warriors, you’ll find out after just a few possessions that every move they make has a purpose — every pass, every cut, every dribble move. The ball zips around and around, players weave in and out — everybody keeps working until they find the perfect shot, and it doesn’t matter whether Stephen Curry or Ian Clark is the point guard. It is involves a little bit of freestyle, but it is an organized freestyle, a system so well drawn-up that it works regardless of the skill-set of the players on the court.
The Lakers, meanwhile, have no organization. They just freestyle. This is fine if you have a peak Kobe Bryant bailing you out, drawing double teams, and getting others involved. But with Kobe out and not dominating the ball on Tuesday, it was like watching five random guys who had never played together before on the court. I question whether Byron Scott actually draws up offensive plays, or if he’s too busy irrationally yelling at his own players and re-criss-crossing his arms on the sideline.
Just look at how the Lakers started the game: Hibbert, who has forgotten how to play basketball, taking ill-advised jump shots. Larry Nance Jr., who is highly skilled at making difficult tip-ins into his own basket, throwing up a wild, contested hook shot. Lou Williams launching a set-shot three from 26-feet out with time on the shot clock. The Lakers were bailed out with 13 free throws in the first quarter, and still managed to fall behind by 12 points.
"What are the Lakers trying to do? It looks like they don't even practice." - Greg Papa on @CSNAuthentic
— Eric He (@erichejourno) January 6, 2016
The Lakers shot the ball at a 31.9 percent clip, and some of the individual field goal percentages were horrific. Williams and Hibbert took seven shots each; Williams missed all of his, Hibbert made one. Nick Young went o-for-6. Julius Randle, who is going to have such a promising career go to waste at this rate, ran around with no sense of direction and took a 1-for-8. Poor Jordan Clarkson, who finished with a solid game with 23 points on 8-of-20 shooting, actually recorded a team-worse plus-minus rating of minus-34 — that’s what happens when your teammates are awful.
Golden State took five fewer shots than the Lakers, but shot nearly 15 percent better from the field. Again, the Warriors know exactly what they want on offense. They move the ball, rotate, rotate and rotate some more, run through some screens and make a few extra passes before even considering taking a shot. Yes, they have world-class shooters like Curry and Thompson, but part of what makes them so good is the system that allows the Splash Brothers to get great looks from distance.
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Give Nick Young or Lou Williams an open three and they’ll make it more often than not; unfortunately, without any offensive cohesion or play call to set them free, the majority of their shots are contested, ill-advised jumpers with the shot clock running down.
In nearly every sense, the Warriors are the anti-Lakers, a team so troubled and stuck in an abyss so deep that you can’t name one thing that they can’t improve on. The Warriors, meanwhile, have everything rolling so well that naming a flaw would be extremely nit-picky and quite frankly, irrelevant (why is Jason Thompson struggling?).
In short, the Warriors are really, really good at the same time that the Lakers are really, really bad, and the Warriors just played a game in Staples Center — formerly a house of horrors for Golden State — in which a 22-0 run in the third quarter was brushed aside as them simply “running on cruise control.” This is really happening, folks. It’s surreal, it’s crazy, and it’s awesome.