Gary Payton II, Jonathan Kuminga near return to Warriors rotation
LOS ANGELES – The Warriors’ best perimeter defender is almost ready to return to the lineup.
Gary Payton II, who has missed the past three games with a partial tear in his left thumb, participated in the team’s shootaround at UCLA on Thursday morning.
He was ruled out of the team’s game against the Lakers, but the team announced he will be listed as day-to-day moving forward.
“We’re going to get Gary back soon,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said pregame.
Payton, 32, has suited up 58 times this season and has averaged 6.6 points and 3.0 rebounds per game in 14.9 minutes per game.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Kuminga warmed up on Thursday night, but remained a game time decision with a right pelvic contusion he suffered in San Antonio last week.
“He’s going to warm up and we’ll see,” Kerr said.
Kuminga was listed as “available” on the official injury report after Kerr’s media availability.
The 6-foot-9 forward is averaging and even 16 points per game this season.
The Warriors (44-31) are the fifth seed, now a half-game in front of sixth-seeded Minnesota (44-32) and the No. 7 seed Los Angeles Clippers (44-32) in the West standings. The Lakers (46-29) entered the game as the No. 3 seed.
Podziemski, Reddick, sees similarities
The Warriors and Lakers each rebuilt their rosters at midseason, trades for Jimmy Butler and Luka Doncic respectively rendering their pre-trade results – three Lakers victories over Golden State – meaningless.
The Warriors are 19-5 since adding Butler, while Los Angeles is 15-10 following its blockbuster trade for Doncic.
The Lakers don’t play at quite the breakneck pace they did when center Anthony Davis was running to the rim, but Los Angeles is still effective when it hits the open court.
“They play a little bit different with Luka,” Brandin Podziemski said after shootaround. “They play slower, but they’re still No. 1 in transition PPP (points per possession), and a lot of rim attempts in transition. So we figure if we can keep a man on a man and keep them out of transition, we’ll be fine.”
Lakers coach JJ Redick also pushed back on the notion that the Warriors have been a completely different team with Jimmy Butler.
“They’re doing a lot of the same stuff, and we’ve got to be great with our off-ball discipline and Curry awareness, and it’s hell to try and guard him,” Redick said.
Although Butler has given Golden State a second ballhandler who can draw fouls (7.6 free throw attempts per game with the Warriors) and find open shooters (6.2 assists per game), Redick highlighted his defensive impact as the Lakers are concerned about.
Kerr agreed.
“Draymond and Jimmy are incredibly high IQ players, and the two of them working together, it’s beautiful to watch,” Kerr said. “They read off each other. We might be in a scheme that we don’t get to for whatever reason and it doesn’t phase them. They just instantly react to what’s in front of them.”
Thursday begins a run of three consecutive games against teams seeded higher than Golden State..
After ending its six-game road trip in Los Angeles, the Warriors will take a quick flight back to the Bay Area to play a home game against third-seeded Denver on Friday.
After one day off, Golden State will play host to No. 2 seed Houston.
“It does feel like a playoff game,” Kerr said. “With this play-in situation, there’s eight teams that would’ve been in in the clear under the old format, and it would have just been about seeding. We’re all desperate to avoid that play-in, and so it’s created a race.”