Lakers Crush Kings In Stellar Preseason Opener

The Los Angeles Lakers were back in action on Monday night after a long and eventful offseason, hitting the road to kick off their preseason slate against the Sacramento Kings at Golden 1 Center.

With so many changes to the roster, it was impossible to know what the Lakers would look like. And even though it is only one preseason game and against the Kings at that, they flashed the potential of this group in an impressive victory.

Lakers 127, Kings 103: key takeaways from preseason opener

Key players out

While it would’ve been nice to see the full Lakers roster playing together for the first time, that wasn’t possible in this one as Austin Reaves (ankle), Walker Kessler (finger), Collin Sexton (lower body) and Arthur Kaluma (lower body) were among the players who didn’t suit up due to minor injuries.

Lakers play with pace, defend full court in dominant first half

The Lakers have been talking about playing a different brand of basketball and that was the case early. Players like Ziaire Williams, Quentin Grimes, Matisse Thybulle, Bronny James and Adou Thiero were picking up full court and forcing turnovers.

That allowed the team to play with pace, getting open looks with stellar ball movement to open up an early double-digit lead. An 11-0 run in the second quarter really extended the lead as everything was going right for the Lakers.

Sandro Mamukelashvili was another new player who made a big impact with his passing and shooting. He ended the first half with a triple, giving L.A. a 73-47 advantage after leading by as many as 33.

Luka Doncic returns

Luka Doncic was playing some of the best basketball of his career last March when he went down with a grade 2 left hamstring strain to forced him to miss the rest of the year.

After not playing for his Slovenian national team this summer, this was Doncic’s first game action in six months and he looked like he did not skip a beat.

Doncic played 16 minutes of action in the first half before being shut down for the night and led all scorers with 21 points on 5-of-11 shooting and 3-of-9 from deep. He also contributed two rebounds, three assists and two steals.

Cameron Carr looks comfortable in NBA debut

With the game out of reach and Doncic done for the night, some other Lakers players got more opportunities in the second half.

One of those was rookie first-round pick Cameron Carr, who picked up where he left off in Summer League and looked comfortable in his first NBA preseason action. In 22 minutes off the bench, Carr had 17 points on 7-of-13 shooting and 3-of-7 from deep.

What’s next for the Lakers

This was the first of five preseason games for the Lakers with two more coming this week. They will continue their road trip by taking on the Golden State Warriors in the second night of a back-to-back on Tuesday at Chase Center. The Lakers will then return home to take on the Kings again on Thursday at Crypto.com Arena.