Lakers vs Cavaliers Preview and Game Thread: How will L.A. bounce back?

LeBron James and the Lakers head to Cleveland to face the Cavs with the goal of not wanting to lose two games in a row.

After dropping their first game of the season to the Phoenix Suns, the Lakers will have the opportunity to bounce back against the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday. This will also be the first time LeBron and Bronny James return to their hometown together as teammates.

Start time and TV schedule

Who: Los Angeles Lakers vs. Cleveland Cavaliers

When: 4 p.m. PT, Oct 30

Where: Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse

Watch: Spectrum SportsNet

Monday’s loss to the Suns revealed a lot about this Lakers team, both good and bad. We learned that JJ Redick wasn’t lying when he said before the season that losing was going to drive him crazy.

We got more reason to believe that Rui Hachimura and Austin Reaves’ strong start to the season might just continue and that the Lakers are dangerously very reliant on Anthony Davis, for better or worse.

On the other side of the coin, we saw yet another blown lead by the Lakers in the second quarter, their weakness when it comes to giving up transition points, their underwhelming bench production and arguably LeBron James’ worst game in the purple and gold armor.

Still, at the expense of treating this one like a moral victory, I can argue that this was actually an encouraging loss for the Lakers with all things considered. It was their third game in four nights against a Pacific Division foe that they just defeated five days ago. So for Los Angeles to fight on the road the way they did was a welcome sight to see.

On top of this, the Lakers were competitive throughout the game despite James scoring just 11 points on 3-14 shooting from the field. This game had schedule loss written all over it prior to tipoff but now it’s considered as one that got away. Now, the only way the Lakers can make up for it is to live to what AD echoed post game which is to avoid losing two in a row.

The determination to achieve that goal is going to be tested early as the Lakers face a Cavaliers team that’s not only off to a perfect start but one that’s playing good basketball to start the season.

Here’s everything to know ahead of LeBron and Bronny’s return to Cleveland:

Zooming into the Cavs

The Cavs have so far beaten three rebuilding teams in the Toronto Raptors, Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards as well as the New York Knicks. Even if they’ve gotten an easy schedule to start the year, this team is already averaging the third most points in the league (123.5) led by Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland and Evan Mobley. They’re still one of the most unique teams in the NBA who play two bigs in the form of Mobley and Jarrett Allen.

The Lakers will be Cleveland’s toughest opponent yet — sorry, Knicks — so it will be interesting to see how these two teams adjust and game plan against each other. After calling out his own defensive scheme last game, Redick has the opportunity to bounce back with a unique challenge. Let’s see how the Lakers will square up against a motivated Cavaliers team at home that ideally wants to stay undefeated.

Will the Lakers continue to get exposed?

One way the Lakers can bounce back is by doing something about the transition points they’ve been giving up. In the last two games, L.A. gave up 21 to the Suns and 31 (!) to the Sacramento Kings, which is unacceptable.

Part of this is because the Lakers have been turning the ball over a lot — they currently rank sixth in the league in that — and also the fact that they’re making more of an effort to crash the glass. But something has to be done because there’s no doubt that the Cavs — who currently average the fifth most points in transition — will try to expose that on Wednesday.

Besides the transition defense, it’ll also be nice to see the Lakers’ bench outplay the opponent’s. This responsibility falls on Max Christie, who hasn’t been performing well to start the season, Gabe Vincent, Jaxson Haynes and Dalton Knecht.

These guys should be partly responsible for retaining the leads that the starters build and being the spark plugs that this team badly needs.

That all said, it’s one thing for Redick and the Lakers to be mad about losing the first game of this road trip and another to actually take it out on the Cavs to bounce back. This game will provide us early insights into the Lakers’ overall character and how serious they actually are in stacking these wins.

Let’s see how the Lakers bounce back against the Cavaliers on Wednesday.

Notes and Updates

• Good news for the Lakers: Christian Koloko has reportedly been cleared by the NBA to return on the court. It’s unclear when exactly the big man will make his Lakers debut but it’s encouraging to know that he can now practice again.
• For the Lakers’ injury report, a couple of notable names have made it to the list. Austin Reaves (left tight contusion) is probable while D’Angelo Russell (low back soreness) is questionable.
• Christian Koloko (return to competition reconditioning), Jarred Vanderbilt (right foot injury recovery) and Christian Wood (right knee injury recovery) remain out.
• Jalen Hood-Schifino (G-League assignment), Maxwell Lewis (G-League assignment), Quincy Olivari (G-League two-way) and Armel Traore (G-League two-way) will all be on South Bay Lakers duties.
• As for the Cavs, Craig Porter (thumb) and Max Strus (hip) are out.
• We will be live on Playback for this game, so be sure to join us!

You can follow Nicole on Twitter at @nicoleganglani.