The Los Angeles Lakers’ new Big 3 of LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook made their preseason debut together on Tuesday night. Alongside those three in the starting lineup was Carmelo Anthony and Kent Bazemore, leading to an offense-heavy attack.
While the Lakers ultimately lost to the Golden State Warriors, there were some positives to take away, especially when considering that six rotation players were out. For one, the Lakers were winning for a majority of the time that the Big 3 was on the court, including a 32-24 first quarter.
Second, having Anthony and Bazemore spot up in the corners felt like an immediate recipe for success that can be carried into the regular season. That’s just some of what led to Anthony’s hopeful comments after Wednesday’s practice.
“It was good. It felt good to kind of just be out there, starting to see what possibilities could be, see how we gel together,” Anthony said. “I thought we had some great moments when all four of us were on the floor together. We had spurts where we were very in tune, we were locked in. We don’t expect it to happen overnight, but yesterday was one of those moments that okay, we see that, we see that, it looks good, it felt good, we feel alright.”
On a larger scale, Anthony was not worried about the team potentially needing time to gel together, pointing to past champions that have needed time to figure things out.
“I don’t know exactly what teams, but if you just look at the course of an NBA season and the teams that have won championships, unless you were the Warriors when they were [73-9], everybody had to figure it out. Started a certain way, go through the nuances of the season, the ups and downs of a season. And then you find your groove.
“I think we’ll figure it out much quicker than people giving us credit for, but that’s on us, that’s something that we take that challenge, that’s something we know, something we talk about even though it’s preseason and we lost some games. That’s definitely something that we talk about. How do we speed that process up without cheating? And I think we’re very aware when it comes to that.”
Injuries are obviously going to make it even more difficult for the team to find a rhythm, but it’s a long regular season. 82 games is plenty of time to figure out how to win alongside one another, and Anthony is confident in the Lakers’ ability to do so.
With just one preseason game to go before the start of the regular season, the Lakers appear ready to begin a long journey towards competing for an NBA championship.
Davis also saw great things from Big 3 debut
Anthony was not the only one feeling positive after witnessing the debut of the Big 3. Davis also had some good things to say about the performances they put up together. “Yeah, we saw some great things,” Davis said after the game.
“With me, Bron, and Russ in actions, there’s endless possibilities of things that we can run and can do especially with shooters on the backside like Melo and Baze, all our shooters.”
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