LeBron James and Russell Westbrook started for the Los Angeles Lakers in their 121-114 loss at Golden State Warriors on Friday. James scored nine points on 4-for-12 shooting in over 17 minutes, and Westbrook finished with seven rebounds and six turnovers. Carmelo Anthony scored four points on 1-for-7 shooting.
Steph Curry scored 30 points and Jordan Poole added 28 for the Warriors. Dwight Howard had 23 points on 8-for-11 shooting from the field and 7-for-11 sniping from the line for the Lakers.
LeBron James, LA Lakers Forward:
“I don’t know. I just want to continue to play ball, continue to work on our habits, things of that nature. I mean, preseason is… I care more about the practice court than I care about preseason games. You get out there and play rotations, and you’re trying to figure out things of that nature. There’s only so much you can get out of a preseason game, at least for me individually. But I love our practices. I love to see what we are doing and continue to work behind closed doors. I don’t know I don’t really put too much into preaseason to be honest.”
“It means something, as far as individuals getting in rhythm, getting in game shape. We have our practices, but being out on the floor and bumping up against another team and things of that nature, that helps. All I’m saying is that for me, there’s nothing I’m going to learn in preseason at this point of my career. Nothing at all. I’m not going to learn anything. Nothing. That means zero. Working our habits and building camaraderie and chemistry out on the floor, that’s always good. Like I said, I love the practices more than the preseason games because you’re making mistakes and you figure it out right there. You’re able to stop and just talk about it, and things of that nature, and go back and rewatch things. We can do that obviously the next day after a preseason game, but we do it right on the fly in practices. So I’m more inclined to love those more at this point. Because there’s nothing on the floor that I’m going to learn, for me individually.”
“Just continue to build chemistry, continue to work our habits, continue to try and implement the new guys, new system and everything. So we play some good ball at times, play some not so good ball at times. That’s obviously not a surprise to anyone.”
Russell Westbrook, LA Lakers Forward:
“Everything is not going to be figured out in the next week or two. We’ve got a long year ahead of us. It’s the preseason. We’ll figure it out.”
