Warriors vs. Lakers in Las Vegas on October 13: Preseason Basketball With a Regular-Season Feel

It says 'preseason' on the schedule, and nobody in the building tonight is going to act like it. The Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers meet on Tuesday, October 13, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, with tipoff at 7:00 p.m. PT — a neutral-site game, with the Lakers as the designated home team, that has become one of the NBA's favourite October traditions: two famous jerseys, one very loud arena just off the Strip.

Vegas knows how to dress up an exhibition. This is the Lakers' now-familiar preseason stop at T-Mobile Arena, presented by MGM Rewards, and it lands at the exact point of the preseason when rotations stop being experiments and start being auditions for opening night. Coaches shorten benches, starters get real minutes, and everybody in a suit on the sideline is taking notes that actually matter.

How to Watch

EssentiallySports reported the full viewing picture for tonight: the game airs nationally on NBA TV and streams on NBA League Pass. In Southern California it is also on Spectrum SportsNet and Spectrum SportsNet+, which broadcast all Lakers preseason games, with radio coverage on ESPN LA 710 AM. If you are in Las Vegas and anywhere near the arena, though, this is one of those nights where the broadcast is the second-best seat — preseason or not, Warriors-Lakers in this building draws a crowd that treats every Curry pull-up three like a playoff possession.

Who's In, Who's Out — and Why Tonight Still Matters

Neither team is whole, and both camps have been honest about it. For Golden State, Jimmy Butler III and Moses Moody are out with knee injuries — Moody is recovering from a ruptured left patellar tendon that ended his 2025-26 season and is expected to cost him the early part of this one, too. Kristaps Porzingis is sidelined with an undisclosed health issue that has kept him away from the team, a situation Steve Kerr has openly called concerning. The paying public got a partial show: Stephen Curry played about 23 minutes and scored 11 points, but Draymond Green and Al Horford did not play — a change from Kerr's pregame plan, reported by ESPN's Anthony Slater and carried by Athlon Sports, that each would play around 20 minutes.

The Lakers' list, in the end, was shorter than the one Redick read out. Per head coach JJ Redick, as reported by The Athletic's Dan Woike and carried by Athlon Sports, Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, Walker Kessler, Collin Sexton and Arthur Kaluma were all expected to sit out Tuesday's game — but when the ball went up, Reaves and Kessler were both in the starting lineup. Reaves, who had tweaked an ankle and been called day-to-day, started and scored a game-high 28 points. Kessler, day-to-day after jamming a finger, started his Lakers debut and finished with 11 points and nine rebounds. Doncic's absence was planned rest, and Sexton sat with a minor lower-body issue — so Lakers fans in Vegas still did not get the Doncic show, but they got more of a game than the report had promised.

So what is tonight actually for? Chemistry, mostly, and pecking order. For the Warriors, extended minutes for Brandin Podziemski and the younger rotation pieces against a real opponent are exactly what a Butler-less week demands — somebody has to absorb that secondary playmaking, and Kerr would rather find out who in October than in November. For the Lakers, it is another look at how the supporting cast functions, how the defence holds up without its new anchor in Kessler, and which bench combinations Redick can trust when the games count.

This is also the second of two preseason meetings between the rivals — Golden State won the first meeting at Chase Center on October 6, 124-98 in the listing carried by Sportradar — and both sides know the date circled behind it: Wednesday, October 21, when the Warriors visit Crypto.com Arena for the regular-season opener. Tonight is the rehearsal. Next week is the real thing, in the same matchup, with the same stars hopefully healthy and the minutes restrictions gone.

A Vegas Night, Done Right

There is a reason the league keeps bringing this matchup to this city. Las Vegas has become the NBA's second living room — Summer League in July, marquee preseason games in October — and a Warriors-Lakers night at T-Mobile Arena is the full show: famous names in the courtside seats, a crowd split down the middle, and just enough edge to remind you these two teams genuinely do not like sharing a stage.

Tip is at 7:00 p.m. PT on NBA TV. Get there early if you are going; settle in early if you are watching. Preseason records are forgotten by November — but the rotation answers both coaches find tonight will follow these teams straight into the season. More hoops are on our Sports front, tonight's other stories are on the news front, and our live coverage keeps rolling through the evening.

For Vegas fans, there is a local layer to all of this, too. This city has spent a decade making its case as a permanent home for big-league basketball, and nights like this are the audition tape: a sold-in, split-allegiance crowd, national television, and two of the league's most valuable franchises treating a Tuesday in October like an event. Every smooth, loud, star-filled night at T-Mobile Arena strengthens the argument that Las Vegas does not just host basketball's biggest exhibitions — it belongs on its regular calendar. Tonight will not settle that question, but it will add another very persuasive exhibit.

Correction (October 14, 2026): An earlier version of this preview reported that Austin Reaves and Walker Kessler would sit out Tuesday's game and that Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Al Horford were each expected to play around 20 minutes. In the event, Reaves started and scored a game-high 28 points; Kessler started his Lakers debut and finished with 11 points and nine rebounds; Green and Horford did not play; and Curry played about 23 minutes, scoring 11 points. Golden State won the game 101-89. Luka Doncic's absence was planned rest, as reported.