The shorthanded Los Angeles Lakers were in a dogfight with the Utah Jazz on Sunday night and escaped with a narrow 105-104 victory to begin their road trip.
With a number of key guys out, the Lakers’ stars knew they needed to step up and that’s what they did. Anthony Davis led all scorers with 33 points to go along with 11 rebounds, two steals and a block while LeBron James contributed 27 points, five rebounds and 14 assists.
The Lakers’ offense struggled as a whole though, particularly late in the game when they were trying to close it out. James missed a 3-pointer when the Lakers were up one with about 10 seconds to play.
The Jazz got the rebound but didn’t call timeout at first as Collin Sexton got out in transition. His plan was to attack the basket, which he did, to score the game-winning layup. The only problem was that Jazz coach Will Hardy eventually called a timeout before he was able to do so.
Sexton’s layup did not count and then he was unable to score after the timeout, securing the win for L.A.
Even though Sexton made the first layup though, Hardy likely called timeout because he saw Davis standing under the rim ready to contest and/or block any attempts from Sexton. Davis heard the whistle and stopped playing when the timeout was called, so Sexton’s would-be game-winning layup went in with ease.
When discussing the play after the game, Davis feels he would’ve had a good chance to get over and block the attempt if he hadn’t heard the whistle beforehand, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“We were only up one so it wasn’t like we could take away the 3 or the 2. We wanted to take away everything. Collin got downhill and I was actually going for a block but I heard the whistle so I stopped. He ended up making it but I don’t know if he would’ve made it. I probably would’ve blocked it. I don’t know, their coach saw something. But for us, especially when a timeout is not called, we have to lock in. We don’t get a chance to kind of talk about what our coverages are so it kind of helped us. Helped us bring Christian into the game to be over the ball and then also kind of just got some confusion it looked like from them where they couldn’t get the ball in and kind of fumbled it and stuff like that. So it kind of worked out in our favor.”
At the end of the day, the Jazz called the timeout and the Lakers eventually won the game, so it doesn’t really matter if Davis would have been able to block Sexton’s layup or not.
Rotating over to block a shot like that is something Davis has done thousands of times though, so if he thinks he would have been there then there isn’t much to argue.
Regardless, the important thing is that the Lakers got a win to begin their road trip and now hopefully they can build off it moving forward.
LeBron James adjusting to lower usage role with Lakers
Under new head coach JJ Redick, the Lakers have made some significant changes to their offense. One of them is playing LeBron James off the ball more as his usage rate is the lowest of his career. He admitted that has required him to make some adjustments, but James is will to do whatever it takes to help the Lakers win.
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