Warriors-Lakers series preview: It’s LeBron vs. Steph for the fifth time

It’s the Bay versus LA, LeBron versus Steph and so, so much more.

For the first time in 32 years, the Golden State Warriors will take on the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA playoffs, starting on Tuesday night at Chase Center.

Thanks to Stephen Curry setting an NBA Game 7 record with 50 points, the Warriors beat the Kings 120-100 to win their first-round series on Sunday afternoon. That sets up the matchup with the Lakers, who clinched their second-round spot by eviscerating the Grizzlies 125-85 in Game 6 on Friday night.

It sets up the fifth postseason series between the Warriors and their dynastic trio of Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green and LeBron James, who was their main foil with the Cleveland Cavaliers and now is a Lakers star.

In the previous four, which all occurred in the NBA Finals from 2015-2018, the Warriors won three times and the Cavs won once. After 2018, James went to the Lakers, and both teams have won one NBA title since (Lakers in 2020, Warriors last year), but have not faced off in the playoffs.

Both the defending champion Warriors and the Lakers underachieved for most of the season, but each team got hot down the stretch of the regular season and carried that into the playoffs.

For the Lakers, James and fellow superstar Anthony Davis have stepped up in the playoffs. James averaged 22.2 points and 11.2 rebounds per game in the first round, and Davis added 20.8 points and 13.7 rebounds.

Los Angeles was also getting key contributions from some unlikely places, as former two-way player Austin Reeves averaged 16.7 points per game and two midseason trade pick ups were also in double-digit points per game — Rui Hachimura at 14.5 and former Warrior D’Angelo Russell at 16.7.

The one area that could be key in the series is the Warriors’ propensity for fouling, as they committed the third-most fouls per game in the NBA regular season. The Lakers averaged more than 26 free-throw attempts per game in the regular season, most in the NBA.

Conversely, the Warriors also had the fewest called fouls on their opponents and the fewest free throws attempts per game in the NBA. The Lakers had the fewest fouls called on them and their opponents averaged the fewest free throws per game of any team in the NBA.

While there’s no recent playoff history between these two teams, they did meet in the NBA’s play-in tournament in 2021, which the Lakers won 103-100 despite Curry scoring 37 points on 6-of-9 shooting from 3-point range. That Warriors team, which was still missing Klay Thompson, would lose in the next play-in game to the Grizzlies and miss the playoffs.

It’ll be the first postseason matchup between the Lakers and Warriors since 1991, in the “Run TMC” era for Golden State. The Lakers won that series 4-1 and would advance to the NBA Finals before losing to Michael Jordan’s Bulls.

As two of the longest-running franchises in professional basketball, the Warriors and Lakers have met seven times in the NBA playoffs. The Warriors have won one of the seven matchups, sweeping the 1967 matchup.

In a funny quirk, the Warriors have never played a postseason game against the Lakers in San Francisco, even in the years when they were called the San Francisco Warriors. In the three consecutive years of playoff showdowns between 1967-1969, the Warriors split their playoff games between the Oakland Coliseum’s arena and the Cow Palace in Daly City, just a few yards outside of the San Francisco city limits.

It’ll be a quick turnaround for the Warriors, and the series will go at an every-other-day pace for the entirely. But even if the Warriors are a bit tired, they surely would rather play while tired than not be playing at all.