Lakers vs Raptors Preview and Game Thread: Avoiding a three game losing streak
The Lakers look to nab their first win on the road this season against the Raptors on Friday.
After playing their worst game of the young season, the Lakers will head northeast where they will continue their road trip against the Toronto Raptors. The purple and gold are still looking to snap this two-game losing streak they now find themselves in.
Start time and TV schedule
Who: Los Angeles Lakers vs. Toronto Raptors
When: 4:30 p.m. PT, Nov 1
Where: Scotiabank Arena
Watch: Spectrum SportsNet
In my most recent preview, I asked how the team would respond after suffering their first loss of the season. On Wednesday, we got our answer and unfortunately, it wasn’t good.
The Lakers followed up their first loss of the season with their worst performance of the year so far and now are in the midst of the first losing streak this season.
Perhaps what made Wednesday’s loss to the Cavs a little more ugly, besides being dominated by them from start to finish, is that L.A. looked like the version of themselves last season. Lazy, uninspired and weaker compared to their opponent.
Once again, their transition defense — which has grown to be a big concern to start the year — was greatly exposed and, this time, so was their lack of offensive fire from both the starters and bench units. As Anthony Davis said postgame, this was the first game where they regressed and were god awful offensively.
Nothing came out of that game against the Cavs and frankly, after hopefully reviewing the tape and correcting their mistakes, the best thing to do is burn it. If the Lakers failed to respond correctly after their first loss of the season, their next test is to answer how they will bounce back from their worst one yet. Fortunately for them, they can take advantage of the Raptors team that’s off to a shaky start to the year.
The struggling Raptors
The Lakers are stumbling upon a Raptors team that’s currently on a three-game losing streak. A big reason for Toronto’s struggles is that most of their main guys, such as Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley, Kelly Olynyk, and Bruce Brown, have been hurt and won’t suit up against the Lakers as well on Friday.
The purple and gold should treat this one as a “get right” kind of game.
Although that’s not to say that this one will be a walk in the park. L.A. still has to worry about RJ Barrett, who isn’t just averaging 25.5 points per game to begin the year but has the green light now that most of his teammates in the starting unit aren’t active.
Note that this Raptors team, despite being unhealthy, are still a really good offensive team as they currently rank 10th in the league in scoring. The Lakers should be able to match this and, better yet, expose the fact that the Raptors are currently the worst defensive squad in the league.
The Lakers can only do that if they have a significantly better offensive game from Anthony Davis, Rui Hachimura, Austin Reaves and D’Angelo Russell. These aforementioned names are worth singling out because none of them posted more than 22 points last game.
Hachimura and Reaves, in particular, were in single digits while Russell only tallied 10 points. Hopefully, this doesn’t happen again moving forward.
That said, since this one should be treated like a “get right game,” it’ll be ideal to see the Lakers get something out of their bench. Is this the game Max Christie is going to finally make his presence felt? It should be with the advantage he will have in the perimeter. It’ll also be nice to see Gabe Vincent and Jaxson Hayes get their rhythm in this one.
I’m also going to look at how the Lakers protect the ball, whether or not they make an effort to improve their transition defense and if their switching defense avoids gets buried for the third game in a row.
More importantly, let’s see how determined the Lakers are to snap their first losing streak of the season on Friday.
Notes and Updates
- The Lakers will face this Raptors team twice in the next two weeks.
- For the Lakers’ injury report, Anthony Davis, who jammed his hip last game, is listed as probably for tomorrow’s game against the Raptors. So is D’Angelo Russell (lower back soreness), who played the last game despite dealing with the same injury.
- Jarred Vanderbilt (right foot injury recovery) and Christian Wood (right knee injury recovery) remain out.
- Christian Koloko (G League two-way), Jalen Hood-Schifino (G League assignment), Maxwell Lewis (G League assignment), Quincy Olivari (G League two-way) and Armel Traore (G League two-way) will all be on South Bay Lakers duties.
- Speaking of JHS, he was a popular topic in Thursday’s Lakers headlines after the team decided to decline his team option.
- For the Raptors’ injury report, Scottie Barnes (right oribital fracture), Bruce Brown (right knee arthroscopic surgical procedure), Kelly Olyny (back lumbar strain) are out. Immanuel Quickley (right pelvic contusion) is listed as doubtful.
- Raptors guard Ja’Kobe Walter (right shoulder AC joint sprain) is questionable.
- We will be live on Playback for this game, so be sure to join us!
You can follow Nicole on Twitter at @nicoleganglani.