Here are the 2014-15 Lakers Preseason Stats. Since preseason stats aren't as organized and easy to find as regular season stats, I collected some stats and put them here in one place. (If the photos appear too small on this screen, right click on the image and open the image in a new window. You will see the larger resolution there.) Notes: 1st image is from: http://www.cbssports.com/nba/teams/stats/LAL/los-angeles-lakers 2nd image was compiled by myself. 3rd image was made by Maknusia of Jeremylin.net.
40% from the arc for the opposing team is scary too... From watching the preseason games, the Lakers seem to give up tons of open 3s because they are regularly scrambling everywhere (they give up quite a lot of dribble penetration). On the flip side, they give a lot of effort on D. Hopefully the team will get more comfortable with the defensive scheme as the season rolls on, and they learn better when to help and when not to.
Two games against the Warriors were absolutely ridiculous. I don't know off hand what % the Warriors hit, but they sure seemed to light it up. Projecting stats from 8 games is tough, but I do think that those problems were real (poor 3pt% and poor opponent 3pt% allowed). Then our defense seemed to tighten things up. I think you're right about that last point.
