I know its early but Raptors showed that Lakers is weak against teams with multiple wing defenders who can switch and recover quickly. AKA small ball works against them.
Is it really small ball when they have a 6'9 Siakam playing PF and a 7'1 Gasol at C? Tatum is 6'8, but he plays way smaller than his height (although his defensive rebounding and shotblocking ability are pretty good) due to his lack of strength. Just don't see us doing the same when we don't have a Siakam type of PF who can switch between Bron and AD seamlessly, we'll probably have to trot out a frontcourt with two of Kanter/Theis/R Williams/G Williams to not get dominated inside.
Siakam is not a true big. He have length but I don't think he have the strength to defend true centers. Smart and Brown can defend both AD and Lebron just fine. And with Timelord further developing, I like our chances against them. Clippers didn't exactly have Siakam-type either. Harrell is more of a Rodman/Wallace type and they beat the Lakers on opening night. I bet that if the Warrior still have their big 3, they also have a good chance against the Lakers.
Small ball also doesn't equal no Center lineup. It could be 1 Center and 3 guards, depending on the matchup. Gasol can be applied on a small ball as he doesn't kill the spacing and he have some intelligence to stay on mismatches ala Horford.
Length helps a lot though, he can be a credible help defender on the largest of big men with his 6'9 frame and long wingspan, and he can probably guard modern bigs straight up like AD. And Brown is definitely not able to cover AD lol, at least not full time like Siakam can due to his lack of size. The Clippers have a 6'7 Kawhi whose functional height is that of a 6'8 forward (he has a short neck) as well as possessing a 7'3 wingspan, he can definitely guard bigs (Brown is 6'6 with a 7 foot wingspan, he's not in the same class as Kawhi when it comes to size and length). And a Rodman/Wallace type is definitely able to check bigs adequately lol. Anyways I'm just saying that our full strength starting 5 (Walker/Brown/Hayward/Tatum/Theis or R Williams) will have problems defending the Lakers due to their size at the PF spot since Brown/Hayward/Tatum really can't guard AD credibly for long stretches due to simply lacking the requisite size and length to check legitimate big men.
Small ball absolutely doesn't equate to no center lineups, but Toronto never played 1 big 3 guard lineups against the Lakers for significant stretches. I just don't think that Toronto played small against LAL, I think they trotted out a modern lineup with a good mix of size, length, skill and speed to swarm the Lakers' bully ball.