Golden State Warriors can pounce on wounded Lakers

The Golden State Warriors could not have asked for a better situation heading into the Play-In Tournament. While the thought of playing Los Angeles was a bit scarier when we were unsure of the Lakers’ overall health — now it has become clear the Dubs have an advantage in a few departments.

We will start with the obvious by saying the Lakers have a much better team and with a healthy LeBron James and Anthony Daivs on the roster, it will be tough to see anyone else winning the championship. But, and that is a big but, LeBron and Davis might not be fully healthy.

Sure, Davis has been back in the lineup since late April but he hasn’t exactly been himself until recently. We’ll dive more into that later, but with James dealing with quite a bit of rust too (Played just four games in the last two months) this Lakers team hasn’t had a typical runway into the playoffs.

The Los Angeles Lakers haven’t had much time to shift into playoff mode and the Golden State Warriors will need to be the aggressor.

Usually, teams with title aspirations have the benefit of working out their kinks throughout the season. This is especially true for a squad with multiple new pieces such as Andre Drummond, Montrezzl Harrell, Wesley Matthews, Marc Gasol and Dennis Schroeder. Not being able to play at full strength for much of the season has held LA back.

Again, this is usually the time when teams would be building momentum heading into the postseason. It is what the Dubs did, finishing the season on a 5-0 run through some lofty competition. For the Lakers, they had just two games at peak power before entering the Play-In.

Now, James has been known to flip the switch at a moment’s notice once the playoffs begin. He routinely stumbled through the regular season in Cleveland before stomping the Eastern Conference on his way to the NBA Finals. The question is, at 36 years of age, is James still capable of this dominance?

More importantly, will it be on display in this single-game format of the Play-In? Remember, James is historically bad in game one’s, posting just a 2-8 record in game one of the NBA Finals — but he’s also historically dominant in elimination games. Which version of James will we see?

Perhaps a better question is which version of AD will we see? Davis looked visibly shaken for the last few weeks of play, avoiding contact and opting for jump shots at a high rate. The problem is, Davis has never been that great of a shooter, connecting on roughly 40 percent of his mid-range attempts in the last three seasons.

However, Davis did torch the Western Conference last year in the playoffs, pushing his accuracy to nearly 60 percent from 15-17 feet. This is a problem for everyone in the NBA because Davis is one of the best paint-finishers in league history, meaning he’s impossible to defend if he’s expanding his range too.

Again, the overarching question is which version of the Lakers will we see in the Play-In? Is this team simply waiting to unleash their full power once the postseason begins or will it take some time for the aging stars to get rolling again?

Either way, the Dubs need to enter this game with confidence and a killer instinct. The Lakers might be wounded and the Warriors need to pounce.