Swanson: Do Lakers have an edge over Warriors in clash of styles?

by admin

When’s the last time you bought into a product and found it as good as advertised? Or maybe even better?

This scintillating second-round playoff series between the No. 7 Lakers vs. the No. 6 Golden State Warriors sold itself with Game 1 on Tuesday; it’s worth every ounce of attention you’re putting into it.

It’s a winner. It’s giving us everything, everywhere, all at once. A hoot of a genre-bending, mind-bending absurdist action-drama, this series of basketball games that might upend what we thought we knew about the modern game.

Up at the Chase Center in San Francisco on Tuesday, the Warriors poured in 3-pointers, relative gimmes for them, like the reigning Pop-A-Shot champ at a kid’s birthday party. They poured it on, hitting 21 of them – 15 more than the Lakers did. Warriors’ shooters Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole made six 3s apiece; the Lakers made six 3s, total.

Wait, lemme think, that’s … a 45-point advantage on 3-pointers alone.

But Golden State fell short anyway, 117-112.

Because the Lakers spent the evening playing Whac-A-Mole, swatting down smaller challengers with elite efficiency, efficacy, racking up 10 blocks altogether, plus a ton more shot contests from their biggest stars. Then they went muscling up to the ticket counter, redeeming 25 of their 29 free throw attempts, thank you very much.

So, somehow, despite having played such wildly different games, despite the widely accepted and totally logical math – 3 is more than 2! – that the NBA ascribes to, the visitors won the night.

That doesn’t happen – or almost doesn’t: Entering Tuesday, teams that had made at least 15 more 3s than their opponents were 59-1 in the past five seasons. The Warriors themselves were 13-0 all-time when that happened.

Crucially from the Lakers, and for those of us rooting for a series that’ll meet our grandiose expectations, they proved an exception to the rule, and take a 1-0 lead entering Game 2 on Thursday.

After vacationing NBA players Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and former Laker Russell Westbrook made waves with their dapper ensembles at the Met Gala on Monday, the style chatter continued a night later: As in, do these philosophies clash?

Especially after Golden State and Sacramento both showed up for their seven first-round ballgames as the matching up-tempo, 3-point spraying outfits that the Warriors made popular.

Is that out now?

No, but … Question 1 to the Warriors’ facilitating enforcer Draymond Green: “Game 1’s style changed so much, how different is it going from –“

Green: “It’s a totally different team. Presents some different challenges.”

Question 2 to Kevon Looney, Golden State’s rebounding vacuum in the post: “How different from the Kings, and how specifically is a guy like (Domantas) Sabonis to Anthony Davis?

Looney: “Definitely an adjustment, totally different styles of play. The Kings offense is very similar to ours. Lakers play a little different.”

No one was asking the Lakers if they didn’t like the look of things. They won.

They won because while the Warriors were dancing and darting around the perimeter – at home from distance but also deterred by Davis, launching 53 3-pointers – they hemorrhaged points at the free-throw line. They had just six free-throw attempts, fewer than Dennis Schroder (8) and Anthony Davis (8) by themselves.

It was the fewest free-throw attempts by a team that took at least 50 3s in a game, ever.

There’s the expected discussion after about adjustments to come: Will the Warriors – who took 14 more shots than the Lakers, overall – go small? Find a way to dislodge AD from the paint? Turn up their float game, so that they might get something at the rim?

The Lakers will make tweaks too, of course. James insisted on it.

“We had a couple lulls when they allowed those guys, Steph, Klay and Jordan, to get some looks, they were really tuned in,” he said. “They’re going to get their looks anyways, so we can’t have our own personal problems. We got to be better.”

But it isn’t as though either team can switch up its stripes. The Warriors’ 3-point proclivity is part of their DNA, just like those four championships in the past eight seasons are.

And these Lakers are who you thought they were: The league’s leading free-throw-taking team (26.6 per game) and one of its most resourceful 2-point shooting squads (64.9% of their shots came from inside the arc this season).

A big, beefy battering ram, being driven by James, a four-time NBA champion – who, wait, actually might be riding shotgun, considering Davis’ mind-boggling numbers.

AD became the first Laker since Shaquille O’Neal with at least 30 points and 20 rebounds in a playoff game and also joined Tim Duncan as just the second player since they started counting in 1973-74 to have a game with at least 30 points, 20 rebounds, five assists and four blocks.

If he and the Lakers — who’ve lost only four of their past 19 games — can compile more nights like Tuesday, it’s hard to imagine that it won’t add up to three more victories, even if the math doesn’t math like we thought it did.

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