UPDATE: Los Angeles Lakers forward Ziaire Williams (foot) has been downgraded to out for tonight’s game, according to Lakers Nation’s Trevor Lane.
After nearly 11 months, the Emirates NBA Cup is finally back, as group stage play opens tonight, with 10 games across the league all counting towards the standings.
The New York Knicks are the only team to have made the knockout stage in every edition of the NBA Cup, but the Los Angeles Lakers are among a group of five teams that have appeared in the knockouts in two of the three seasons.
Tonight, Los Angeles — which won the 2023 tournament — will start its 2026 tournament with a group play matchup against the Golden State Warriors, who have made the knockouts once. Tip-off is set for 10 p.m. ET at Chase Center in San Francisco.
For the Lakers, rookie Cameron Carr (oblique) and second-year forward Adou Theiro (knee) remain out, while Ziaire Williams (foot) is questionable. Luka Dončić (back) is not on the injury report after missing Los Angeles’ win over the LA Clippers on Wednesday. Only the Warriors’ three long-term absences — Jimmy Butler (ACL), Moses Moody (patellar tendon), and Kristaps Porziņġis (not with team) — are out, although Gui Santos (knee) is doubtful.
Los Angeles is a 3.5-point road favorite on DraftKings Sportsbook (-148 Moneyline), with the point total set to 234.5. Golden State is +124 on the Moneyline.
Below, I’ll break down tonight’s NBA Cup showdown and offer a prediction.
Los Angeles Lakers at Golden State Warriors preview, prediction
The Lakers made major changes to their roster in the offseason, losing LeBron James in free agency and trading two first-round picks and two pick swaps to the Utah Jazz in a sign-and-trade for center Walker Kessler. Three of Los Angeles’ five starters weren’t on the roster last season, unless Jake LaRavia once again fills in for Williams, but with Dončić and Austin Reaves combining for 60.4 points per game so far, chemistry on the rest of the roster hardly matters. So far, the Lakers have the second-best offense and only a slightly below-average defense, resulting in the fifth-best net rating so far.
The Warriors arguably needed to make more changes than Los Angeles did, but they mostly ran their roster back. Rookie small forward Yaxel Lendeborg, backup point guard Brandon Williams, and forward Georges Niang were likely Golden State’s biggest additions, and it suffered a blow shortly before training camp when Porziņġis stepped away from the team. Stephen Curry has been good, averaging 28.8 points per game, and Lendeborg has chipped in an impressive 22.6 points and 9.2 rebounds per game of his own, but the Warriors are just 2-3 with the sixth-best offense and the fourth-worst defense after an uncompetitive loss to Los Angeles on the opening night.
Lakers at Warriors pick, best bet
The Lakers should dominate the interior with Kessler now manning the middle. So far this season, Golden State has done a better job getting to the rim than Los Angeles has, but the Lakers have been the league’s best finishing team for the third time in the last four seasons. In the season opener against the Warriors, Kessler recorded 10 dunks, the most in a game by a Los Angeles player in 23 years. Both teams have done a good job stopping their opponents from getting to the restricted area, but while the Lakers were one of the worst rim-protecting teams last season, Kessler’s arrival suggests that their improvement could be sustainable.
Perhaps counter-intuitively, Golden State has been the better rebounding team this season, as Lendeborg’s length and athleticism has paid dividends even though 36-year-old Draymond Green is its full-time starting center. Still, I’m not sure Lendeborg’s presence alone is enough to make up for the fact that the Warriors were the league’s seventh-worst team on the glass last season, and the fact that Los Angeles won the rebounding battle in the season opener suggests that it should have the edge in the long run. Both teams have both scored and allowed a lot of points off of turnovers so far, but the Lakers were slightly more effective in transition last season and added more youth and athleticism during the offseason. Golden State could do a better job getting to the charity stripe, since Los Angeles lost one of the league’s better contact artists in James, allowing it to make up for some of its deficits elsewhere.
The question becomes whether or not the Lakers can hang with the Warriors’ shooting, given that as a great a shooter as Dončić is, he is no match for Curry. As a result of Curry’s gravity, no team produced more wide-open three-pointers last season than Golden State, and only two produced fewer uncontested looks than Los Angeles, trends that have more or less continued so far this season. Defensively, both teams were fairly adept at preventing uncontested triples, which has mostly been the case early in the 2026/27 campaign. I’d give the overall shooting edge to the Warriors because they produce much easier looks and have gotten more unlucky so far, but Dončić’s propensity to hit difficult looks makes it competitive.
It’s important not to read too much into one game in which Golden State shot just eight-for-36 (22.2%) from deep, but fundamentally, I don’t think these Lakers are a good matchup for the Warriors. Sure, Lendeborg limited Dončić to one-for-five shooting when the two were matched up, but with Green playing more center, I don’t trust any of Golden State’s perimeter defenders to be able to slow him down consistently. Given his size, wingspan, and timing on both sides of the ball, Kessler is a mismatch for everyone on the Warriors’ roster. Los Angeles should take this one easily.
