SAN FRANCISCO — JJ Redick didn’t lambaste his team in the public sphere following a 25-point crumble against the Golden State Warriors on Friday night.
The Lakers’ head coach sure could have, considering the reality of what the second loss of the season for the Lakers looked like: an ugly showing as Steph Curry led the Warriors with a classic sharpshooting display of 31 points, using eight 3-pointers to reduce Luka Doncic’s 37-point, ever-impressive effort into a stat point to hang onto in defeat.
The Lakers (4-2) tallied 20-plus turnovers for the third time already this season, while guard Austin Reaves carried eight of those turnovers himself for the second consecutive game.
“I was terrible again,” Reaves said of his turnover woes, which added to the Lakers’ fourth-worst turnover rate in the league (17.8 turnovers per game).
Just six games into the 2026-27 season with a team full of new faces, the Lakers may need a bit of patience and time to discover their winning formula.
“Look, we want to become a great team,” said Redick, whose tone was more calculated and measured than angry in defeat Friday night. “You don’t become a great team in six games. We want to become a great team after 82 games and have a chance to go compete for a championship in April and May and June. It’s a process to get there. We know we are going to be patient.”
Doncic and Reaves will almost always lead the way on offense, attracting double teams and defensive traps. So far, however, the star pairing hasn’t been able to comfortably sneak their way out of them to get the ball out to their teammates – the likes of Quentin Grimes, Collin Sexton and Matisse Thybulle – for open looks.
“I think there’s gonna be a lot of shocks on me,” Doncic said of the Warriors’ defensive shocks, a basketball term for an aggressive double-team Doncic often sees on pick-and-roll attempts. “A lot of times, playing and even going back to Europe there were a lot of shocks. So I’m kind of used to it. We just need to do better with that. You create advantage, you put two on the ball. And you got to go score. It’s a four-on-three, so we (have to) be better at that.”
The Warriors successfully mucked up the Lakers’ offensive flow with their shocks beyond Doncic’s 21-point first quarter, holding the Lakers to just 57 points across the final three quarters.
Outside of Doncic and Reaves, the Lakers shot 33.3% from the field. Off the bench, the Lakers recorded seven points compared to 48 points from the Warriors’ reserves.
“We have so many guys that can score the ball, provide so many extra things offensively,” Lakers forward Jake LaRavia said. “But a lot of time, when you’re playing with someone like Luka and AR that are just so good offensively, you’re going to have to kind of shift your game just a little bit. So I think the more games go on, the more we learn (to adjust), the better we’ll be.”
The 7-foot-1 big man, one of the nine new faces, said that they “don’t know what guys like to do on the floor yet,” as the Lakers’ roster still discovers their respective roles on the team. Comfortability together will come with in-game reps, Kessler added.
“We got to do a better job of holding leads,” said Kessler, who has averaged 14 points, nine rebounds and 2.8 blocks per game in the young season. “But responding to adversity, coming together, communicating … I think, (there are) still a lot of new guys, so we haven’t really done the best of that naturally.”
As Redick said, the Lakers won’t be great six games into the season.
Look across the league: The Memphis Grizzlies are undefeated at 5-0, while the defending champion New York Knicks (2-4) are off to a poor start.
Eighty-two games is a long season to become great.
When asked what it’s going to take for the Lakers to become a “great” team, Doncic said he didn’t know what it would take. Doncic, who leads the league with 36.2 points per game on 47.5% shooting, would go onto say that Friday night’s game was “good.”
Not good in the way that the Lakers lost.
But the six-time All-NBA first teamer said that it was good that the Warriors provided the Lakers a blueprint for how they can become further efficient against the shocks. He’s hopeful that, with his new teammates, the Lakers can turn toward the better sooner than later.
“It’s going to take some time for sure,” Doncic said. “We got a lot of new guys, but I really like playing with these guys. … Everybody gotta be better than this.”
Toronto (3-2) at Lakers (4-2)
When: 6 p.m. Sunday
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV/Radio: Spectrum Sportsnet/ESPN LA 710, 980 KFWB