Aggressive Yaxel Lendeborg helps Warriors drub short-handed Lakers in preseason home opener
Finally, Yaxel Lendeborg went through the chest. Finally, he attacked. Finally, he sneered, with a little flair. And finally, on Tuesday night, the Golden State Warriors got to see the first inklings of a true offensive threat that could bring new beginnings in the Bay Area.
In the second quarter of a sleepy preseason home opener against the Los Angeles Lakers, an already-twitchy Lendeborg motored down the lane with only the 6-foot-7 Jake LaRavia in his path. A week earlier, at Warriors camp in Hawaii, Lendeborg had passed up nearly the exact same look attacking the 6-foot-7 Gui Santos in favor of a kick-out to Stephen Curry. Here, though, he put his head down, one-two-stepping through LaRavia and dropping a layup over his head.
A whistle blew. Lendeborg headed to the line. But not before lowering his hand in a too-small motion – extending for a couple seconds – toward a player all of a few ticks shorter than him.
“We need Yaxel to have an aggressive scoring mentality, and that’s something we’re going to work with him on, because he can make plays and he can score,” head coach Steve Kerr said after the Warriors’ preseason opener Sunday night in Hawaii.
Not two days later, the rookie showed he was listening, in a 124-98 drubbing of the Lakers. Lendeborg (game-high 17 points) attacked the rim coast-to-coast not 30 seconds into Tuesday’s second preseason game; he missed, and didn’t miss much after that. First-half decisions were made with no mental threat of pulling too early in the clock – as Lendeborg told the Chronicle was on his mind in Hawaii – and full assertiveness, with a bevy of catch-and-rip drives to the rim.
He splashed back-to-back 3-pointers from each wing in the second quarter, too, holding three fingers aloft to a sparse crowd at the Chase Center.
Warriors 124, Lakers 98
| FG | FT | Reb | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| L.A. LAKERS | Min | M-A | M-A | O-T | A | PF | PTS |
| LaRavia | 22:18 | 3-7 | 2-3 | 0-3 | 1 | 2 | 9 |
| Thiero | 16:57 | 3-6 | 1-3 | 0-4 | 0 | 2 | 7 |
| Mamukelashvili | 18:08 | 6-10 | 0-0 | 1-2 | 2 | 1 | 15 |
| Grimes | 23:05 | 3-8 | 4-5 | 0-1 | 3 | 3 | 12 |
| James | 20:58 | 2-5 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| Manon | 22:18 | 3-8 | 0-0 | 1-4 | 0 | 2 | 7 |
| Knecht | 21:52 | 3-8 | 4-4 | 1-1 | 1 | 2 | 11 |
| Hardy | 18:46 | 4-12 | 4-4 | 0-4 | 3 | 3 | 13 |
| Vanderbilt | 15:30 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 2-5 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Okereke | 13:16 | 1-3 | 2-2 | 1-3 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Looney | 13:02 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 1-3 | 2 | 3 | 0 |
| Carr | 12:10 | 1-4 | 2-2 | 0-0 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| Swider | 12:00 | 3-7 | 0-0 | 1-2 | 0 | 1 | 9 |
| Kyle | 9:40 | 0-2 | 0-0 | 2-2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Totals | 240:00 | 33-83 | 19-23 | 10-35 | 20 | 29 | 98 |
Percentages: FG .398, FT .826.
3-Point Goals: 13-37, .351 (Mamukelashvili 3-4, Swider 3-4, Grimes 2-6, LaRavia 1-2, Carr 1-3, Manon 1-3, Knecht 1-4, Hardy 1-6, Okereke 0-1, James 0-2, Thiero 0-2).
Team Rebounds: 11. Team Turnovers: 3.
Blocked Shots: 5 (LaRavia, Looney, Mamukelashvili, Manon, Vanderbilt).
Turnovers: 22 (Hardy 5, Grimes 3, James 3, Knecht 3, Carr 2, Thiero 2, LaRavia, Mamukelashvili, Manon, Vanderbilt).
Steals: 13 (LaRavia 3, Vanderbilt 3, Carr 2, Hardy 2, Manon 2, Grimes).
Technical Fouls: None.
| FG | FT | Reb | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GOLDEN STATE | Min | M-A | M-A | O-T | A | PF | PTS |
| Lendeborg | 21:27 | 7-11 | 1-2 | 2-9 | 2 | 1 | 17 |
| Santos | 21:20 | 2-3 | 3-4 | 0-3 | 2 | 0 | 7 |
| Green | 14:52 | 1-1 | 0-0 | 0-2 | 8 | 3 | 3 |
| Curry | 14:19 | 4-7 | 5-6 | 0-2 | 5 | 2 | 16 |
| Podziemski | 19:27 | 7-11 | 1-2 | 0-2 | 1 | 1 | 16 |
| Niang | 18:32 | 2-8 | 2-2 | 0-1 | 0 | 2 | 7 |
| B.Williams | 18:07 | 3-6 | 4-4 | 0-2 | 1 | 2 | 10 |
| Melton | 17:42 | 2-7 | 4-4 | 1-1 | 3 | 1 | 9 |
| Payton II | 15:56 | 1-2 | 1-2 | 3-5 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Richard | 15:12 | 2-3 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| Bassey | 14:15 | 2-4 | 0-0 | 1-6 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
| Ike | 12:20 | 1-4 | 4-4 | 3-7 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| Leons | 10:20 | 2-3 | 0-0 | 0-1 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Cryer | 9:07 | 1-5 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Terry | 8:03 | 1-2 | 2-2 | 0-1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| Kelly | 5:55 | 2-2 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 2 | 6 |
| Toohey | 3:06 | 1-1 | 0-0 | 1-1 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Totals | 240:00 | 41-80 | 27-32 | 11-44 | 32 | 24 | 124 |
Percentages: FG .512, FT .844.
3-Point Goals: 15-35, .429 (Curry 3-6, Kelly 2-2, Lendeborg 2-3, Green 1-1, Leons 1-1, Payton II 1-1, Toohey 1-1, Richard 1-2, Niang 1-3, Podziemski 1-3, Melton 1-4, B.Williams 0-1, Ike 0-1, Santos 0-1, Terry 0-1, Cryer 0-4).
Team Rebounds: 8. Team Turnovers: 1.
Blocked Shots: 9 (Bassey 3, B.Williams, Kelly, Lendeborg, Podziemski, Richard, Santos).
Turnovers: 23 (B.Williams 5, Cryer 2, Green 2, Ike 2, Lendeborg 2, Melton 2, Payton II 2, Podziemski 2, Kelly, Leons, Santos, Terry).
Steals: 10 (B.Williams, Bassey, Cryer, Green, Melton, Niang, Payton II, Podziemski, Santos, Terry).
Technical Fouls: None.
| L.A. Lakers | 31 | 22 | 22 | 23 | – | 98 |
| Golden State | 45 | 36 | 15 | 28 | – | 124 |
This, of course, wasn’t quite reality. The Lakers – deep breath – sat Luka Doncic, and Austin Reaves, Walker Kessler, and Collin Sexton, and Ziaire Williams, and Matisse Thybulle, and were left with a skeleton crew of B- and C-teamers that Golden State ran off the floor within the first quarter. The Warriors started Lendeborg at an amorphous forward spot while giving center Al Horford the night off, turning to their small-ball lineup, and didn’t quite get a realistic look at how that lineup would play against regular-season competition.
Still, a starting unit of Lendeborg, Stephen Curry, Brandin Podziemski, Draymond Green and Gui Santos hummed with considerable more cohesion than a bigger lineup displayed in Hawaii this weekend. Lendeborg had what seemed like acres of wide-open hardwood in the paint to drive, as Golden State got up and down quickly and efficiently in newly-implemented concepts with five players setting up on the perimeter.
And Green, notably, looked like a completely different player from a drifting shell of himself in the Warriors’ opener, spamming back-cut reads to Podziemski and others in racking up eight first-half assists.
“It’s a big adjustment, for sure,” Green told reporters Sunday night, slightly aloof in discussing Golden State’s new system. “After you play a certain way for so long, it’s a big adjustment. But, we’ll figure it out.”
After struggling in Golden State’s preseason opener, Podziemski flashed signs of a leap Tuesday, finishing with 16 points on 7-for-11 shooting. Curry, too, continued to look spry, with a pair of and-one threes in the first half.
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This article originally published at Aggressive Yaxel Lendeborg helps Warriors drub short-handed Lakers in preseason home opener.
