Lakers stats: 3 numbers that say L.A. will beat the Phoenix Suns

The Los Angeles Lakers began the season with a bang on Tuesday night, handling the Minnesota Timberwolves at home by a score of 110-103. It was the first season-opening win for L.A. since 2016, and a promising start to the JJ Redick era, but a new test awaits on Friday night in the Phoenix Suns.

Like L.A., Phoenix also has a new coach in Mike Budenholzer. Unlike Redick, Budenholzer has years of NBA head coaching experience, with two Coach of the Year awards and an NBA title to his credit.

The Suns also got a win on Opening Night, though their overtime thriller over the Clippers was much more stressful than what the Lakers went through.

Each team has only played a single game this season, so we don't have much to go on when it comes to prognosticating results. For teams like the Lakers and Suns whose cores remained mostly intact, it could be useful to look at last year's late-season games. Both teams have new head coaches with new philosophies, though, so that's not exactly helpful either.

Lakers fans have been expressing optimism for the season ahead after the way their team looked against the Wolves. Let's keep that optimism rolling with three stats that tell us why the Lakers will move to 2-0.

No player has had more regular season success against Kevin Durant than LeBron James

Kevin Durant will go down as one of the greatest players in NBA history, but for most of his career, he's had to take a back seat to LeBron James. LeBron has had KD's number more than any other player, as his 18-8 record in head-to-head regular season matchups demonstrates.

Durant can always hang his hat on the fact that he's 2-1 versus LeBron in the NBA Finals, beating him twice as a Warrior (and winning two Finals MVPs) after losing early in his career as a member of the Thunder. When it comes to the regular season though, it's been advantage LeBron.

LeBron and KD's rivalry has persisted throughout the years, even as both players have switched teams multiple times. Since they've reached their current destinations though, LeBron has maintained his dominance by a 3:1 ratio.

Durant's stint with the super-team Warriors was the only time he got the best of LeBron. Any other time the two have met, LeBron has come out on top. His 17-5 record in those matchups is reason enough to pick his Lakers on Friday night.

The Suns got killed in the paint on Opening Night, while Anthony Davis looked to be in peak form

One game does not a pattern make, but if we can glean anything from the first game of the season, the Lakers' greatest strength may also be the Suns' greatest weakness, and JJ Redick will surely do all he can to exploit it.

The Clippers are not expected to be a contender this year, especially without Kawhi Leonard, who is once again out indefinitely. That didn't stop them from giving the Suns all they could handle on Wednesday, and the way they did it was to whip them in the paint.

Ty Lue's club scored 62 points down low, not because they have an All-NBA player like Nikola Jokic or Joel Embiid, but because the Suns don't have much in the way of rim protection. Jusuf Nurkic isn't exactly known for his defense, and Mason Plumlee isn't much better. The Clips took advantage.

Clippers center Ivica Zubac is a quality role player, not the focal point of an offense. In his 9-year NBA career, he's never averaged 12 points per game, but against the Suns, he hung up 21on 8-13 shooting.

That might sound like bad news for the Suns, but it gets worse. Anthony Davis is the Lakers center, and you couldn't hope to replicate his offensive production even if you stacked two Ivica Zubacs in a trenchcoat. On second thought, that would probably be worse than just one Ivica Zubac anyway.

Davis was head-to-head with four-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert on Tuesday, and he pulled the basketball equivalent of stuffing Gobert into a locker by hanging 36 points on the big Frenchman.

Davis scored from all over the court, and he was especially proficient at getting to the free throw line when taking it to the hoop. Nurkic is known for getting into foul trouble, which makes this a real nightmare of a matchup for the Suns. Look for Redick to craft a gameplan that gets the ball to AD early and often, and for The Brow to put up another monster line.

The Suns have continued their turnover-prone ways, while the Lakers have turned over a new leaf

The Lakers were abysmal from outside against the Wolves, but their 5-30 mark from three didn't matter in the end. Why? Because they valued every possession.

L.A. only turned the ball over seven times on the night, but they forced 16 turnovers from the Wolves. A -9 turnover differential is a difficult margin for any team to overcome on the road, even one as good as Minnesota.

Not a single Laker committed more than two turnovers in the game, which is pretty remarkable considering that four of them averaged more than two a game last year.

I can hear you shouting through your phone or laptop or whatever device you enjoy FanSided on, "What about the Suns?!" First of all, calm down, I'm getting to it. Second of all, Phoenix turned the ball over 22 times against the Clippers two nights ago. Sure, they played overtime, but they only turned it over twice in the extra period.

Twenty turnovers in 48 minutes is still sloppy basketball. For context, the Jazz were the most turnover-prone team in the league last year, and they averaged only 15.7 per game. The Suns weren't much better at 14.9, and even though they have a new head coach, it doesn't seem that Budenholzer has been able to address the issue yet.

Between LeBron's dominance over Kevin Durant and the Lakers' huge edge in the post and the turnover department, this is a tremendous opportunity to get another home win and move to 2-0 for the first time since 2010.