Lakers adjusting to life without LeBron as they await his return

LOS ANGELES — There was a point, midway through the first after the Golden State Warriors had switched to zone, that Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick realized he missed LeBron James.

Los Angeles was struggling to sink shots. The 2025-26 season was merely a few minutes old, but Redick caught himself imagining life with his other star player back and fully healthy.

It would be great to have LeBron just to throw it to him in the high post.

It was, however, just a thought, and the Lakers would have to try finding other ways to keep pace with Golden State, their top rival since James joined the team in 2018.

But Tuesday night’s 119-109 loss against the Warriors showed just how challenging life may be for Redick and the Lakers as new faces try to assimilate on the fly while James nurses his sciatica issue that will sideline him at least for another week – if not longer.

‘It’s hard to forget about LeBron,’ Redick told reporters after the game. ‘The reality is, when you’re focused on the group that you have, you’ve got to make that group work. Sometimes you can just be like ‘Oh my God, we’re going to get LeBron back at some point.’ That’s awesome, but you have to be focused.’

A slimmed-down Luka Dončić showed that the offseason work on his body paid off. He dropped 43 points, 12 rebounds and 9 assists in a near-triple-double and was relentless in attacking the rim, sinking 13-of-14 attempts inside the paint. His defensive effort was improved, and he controlled his emotions with the officials.

But if there are three reasons to blame for this loss, it’s poor perimeter shooting, turnovers and third quarter issues (the Warriors opened the second half on an 18-4 run) that date back to last season.

Much of this, the Lakers stress, can be traced to the team’s relative lack of time assimilating during training camp because of injuries.

‘This is probably the second game together that we’ve actually played, everybody,’ forward Rui Hachimura said. ‘We’re still trying to figure out rhythm.’

The key for the Lakers to weather this initial spurt without James may be new center Deandre Ayton. He made most of the opportunities that came his way Tuesday night, making 5-of-7 shots, but he finished with only 10 points.

Part of it was timing, part of it was familiarity, but Ayton and ball-handlers Dončić and Austin Reaves often mistimed passes on pick-and-rolls, leading to turnovers, of which the Lakers had 20 overall.

‘I have to do a better job,’ Dončić said of pick-and-rolls with Ayton. ‘Talking to him – what I want, what he wants. Today was on me. I didn’t give him enough touches. I’ve got to help him.’

Los Angeles hit just a quarter (8-of-32) of its 3-point shots, ceding a 27-point advantage to Golden State in threes. In fact, the Lakers shot a blistering 75.6% on two-point shots.

The Lakers also posted runs late in the second and fourth quarters, the latter shrinking the Golden State lead to just six points with four minutes to play.

These are all signs that point toward Los Angeles possibly figuring things out.

‘I think it was mostly self-inflicted,’ Redick said. ‘I think if you look at this game, a microcosm of this game was we did enough good things to put ourselves in a position to win, for most of the game. And when we didn’t do those things, they were self-inflicted.

‘That’s not being organized early in the offense, that’s having the wrong guy bring it up … not sprinting back … those are self-inflicted things. That’s not anything Golden State did to us.’

James will solve some of these issues.

Though he’ll turn 41 in late December, he remains one of the elite players in the game, and one who can attack the paint and feed his teammates. He can be a primary ball-handler and the gravity he draws from opponents will open up spacing for his teammates. His 8.2 assists per game last season ranked sixth in the NBA.

Once he’s back, however, Lakers role players will need to hit their shots.

‘When you’re missing a guy like Bron, you’re not going to fill that with one person,’ Reaves said. ‘You have to do it as a collective group.’