Point guards should be ready
Lonzo Ball and Patrick Beverley are expected to play in Thursday night’s Lakers-Clippers opener at Staples Center.
As Lonzo Ball backed toward a crowd of reporters waiting to speak with him, he tossed a few words of friendly trash talk toward Kyle Kuzma.
The two rookies had just finished their near-daily half-court shooting competition and this time Ball had won. “Redemption,” Ball said. After a practice last week, Ball lost to Kuzma, fizzling after a hot start.
On Monday, the shooting contest came after a practice in which Ball fully participated. He even took part in the five-on-five scrimmage to close the session — a sign that he is as close as he has been in two weeks to being ready to play a basketball game.
“I’m playing for sure,” Ball said of the Lakers’ regular-season opener Thursday night against the Clippers.
Ball suffered a left ankle sprain Oct. 2 and sat out the Lakers’ last four preseason games. The injury seemed minor, but when Ball woke up the next morning his ankle was swollen, indicating a more serious injury than he or the Lakers first thought.
While there was a small degree of concern about Ball sitting out regular-season games, the Lakers anticipated that he would be ready by the opener.
For the first week after Ball suffered the injury, he did very little on-court work, if any, during practice. His lateral movement was limited, as was his ability to push off on his left foot. Last Tuesday, he began to do pregame work on the court with assistant coach Miles Simon. He did so again before Wednesday’s practice.
Finally, on Thursday, Ball participated fully in practice but did not scrimmage.
Not until Monday was he able to scrimmage.
“Lonzo showed why he’s going to be really good,” coach Luke Walton said, “but he also showed that he’s been out for a couple weeks with some of the turnovers he had.”
Ball agreed that his play was sloppy. He said that he did not feel winded but was a little bit rusty after so many days without true five-on-five work.
But he offered this promise: “I’ll be ready for Thursday.”
Cross training
Walton was among a delirious Dodger Stadium crowd that watched Justin Turner hit a walkoff three-run homer Sunday night against the Chicago Cubs.
“I had the young kids with me so we were going to leave but our guy Turner took care of it right before overtime,” Walton said. “It’s a little scary right over the firstbase dugout. You’ve got to pay attention to those things, some balls came f lying in our direction. It was a lot of fun. The energy in there was ridiculous and obviously the Dodgers winning was awesome.”
There’s something about the way the Dodgers have won that resonates for Walton, who said he might talk to his players about them.
“I think what makes that team so good is that throughout the year they just kept finding ways to kind of get it done and it was from different people on the roster, it wasn’t just certain stars carrying everybody,” Walton said. “They’re definitely one of those successful teams that does it by everyone buying in, which is where we’re trying to get to.”
Injury update
Lakers center Andrew Bogut participated in all of Monday’s practice except for the five-on-five scrimmage. Bogut has been limited because of a groin injury that has been steadily improving.
Power forward Julius Randle was limited in practice after suffering a strain to a muscle near his ribs during Friday’s final preseason game.
Rookie guard Josh Hart was sidelined during practice after suffering a strained left Achilles tendon. Hart sat out the early part of the preseason schedule because of a hamstring injury he said he suffered while running.