Yaxel Lendeborg backs up his Dillon Brooks ‘belt’ line with 26 points, and Steve Kerr calls his weak-side defense ‘very poor’

Before the season, Yaxel Lendeborg said he was looking forward to one matchup in particular. “I’m excited for the Dillon Brooks matchup,” the Golden State Warriors rookie said in a clip that has circulated from his own social media. “I’m gonna give Dillon Brooks belt, man. Stop playing, bro.”

On Saturday he got the matchup, and he made the line look good. In his first back-to-back, with Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Al Horford and Brandin Podziemski all out, Lendeborg scored a career-high 26 points with nine rebounds, five assists and six threes in 36 minutes. The Phoenix Suns still won 131-122 behind Devin Booker‘s 43, and Golden State fell to 0-3.

A lot of the early damage came against Dillon Brooks. Erik Ruby noted on X that Lendeborg had 13 points in his first 13 minutes, mostly with Brooks guarding him, and one of those plays was a seal on Brooks and a finish through the foul for an and-one.

Lendeborg’s and-one against Brooks, posted by the NBCSWarriors account on X.

He opened the third quarter with a three and finished 9-of-19 from the field, 6-of-11 from deep and 2-of-3 at the line, with five offensive rebounds and no fouls. Brooks had 15 points on 6-of-12 shooting. Through three games, Lendeborg has 56 points, 25 rebounds and 13 assists, and he has made 8 of 18 threes.

‘He’s fearless’

Steve Kerr liked most of it, but not all of it. Asked what had impressed him about how fast the No. 11 pick has adjusted, he started with the obvious. “He’s fearless and he’s huge and he’s got a great skill set,” Kerr said. “He can dribble, pass and shoot. The biggest thing is just continuing to learn the NBA.”

Kerr pointed to a first-half drive where Lendeborg got free and launched himself into Suns center Khaman Maluach, a play he said the Warriors also saw a few times on Friday against Zach Edey in Memphis. “That’s got to be a pull-up, or that’s got to be a Euro step. That’s got to be kick it out,” Kerr said. “In college he could do that, but this is a different league, and he’ll learn. He’s playing a ton and he’s going to get all these reps, and we’re going to keep showing him film, and he’ll get better and better.”

‘Very poor’ on the weak side

Then came the part a 26-point night did not cover. “The defensive side is where I want to see the most improvement, though,” Kerr said. “His weak-side awareness right now is very poor. With his size, he should be one of our best defenders at the rim. And right now he’s unaware on the weak side, and that’s an area he really has to improve.”

Kerr’s full answer on Lendeborg, posted by MrBuckBuckNBA on X.

More of the ball late

Kerr also said Lendeborg will get more of the ball when games are close. Golden State lost on Friday after Memphis closed on a 17-0 run, with the Warriors leaning on the Curry and Green pick-and-roll at the end. “Well, Yax, he has the ability to create a shot, so we will definitely go to him more often,” Kerr said. “It’s just a lot of pressure on Steph and Dray to put them in that spot over and over again. So we’ll never go away from that. It’s always going to be the best thing we do, those two guys in the two-man game. But Yaxel’s a really talented guy who we can absolutely play through.”

“We’re going to put Yaxel in more and more pick-and-roll situations, playmaking situations,” he added. “And I have no doubt he’s going to help us close a lot of games this year.”

Golden State plays at the Denver Nuggets on Monday at 10 p.m. ET, which is 5 a.m. Tuesday in Cairo, and then at Minnesota. The Lakers and Luka Doncic, his opening-night sparring partner, visit the Warriors on Friday, October 30.