With LeBron James out of the lineup, Anthony Davis had a monster night to lead the Los Angeles Lakers to a win and season sweep over the Sacramento Kings, finishing with 36 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists on an efficient 12-of-16 shootings.
In the midst of that performance though, Davis was unhappy with the Lakers’ defense. They went into the halftime locker room trailing 66-65 and head coach JJ Redick revealed after the game that Davis challenged the team to be better defensively in the second half.
They responded by giving up just 24 points in the third quarter to open up a big lead, which was enough to hang on for the win. After the game, Davis explained why he challenged his team and what he told them.
“I just told the guys that we just got to be better defensively,” Davis said. “Obviously, this team plays very fast in transition. We were just scoring, we were just trading buckets. And we’re not going to be able to do that. We got to rely on our defense. So I just told everybody, like, we got to defend. We got to lay our hats on on defense. And we just kind of locked back in defensively. Start getting stops to finish the third, and then the fourth. Happened again.
“Where they came out, and they had eight points, I want to say eight points, I think, in a minute and 50, which is unacceptable for us. So that’s when JJ [Redick] called the timeout and came back and just told the guys again, like, yeah, we just gotta get stops. We’re gonna score. We are getting everything we want offensively. We got to get stops. And was able to lock back in defensively.”
Davis added that it is easy for him to get on his teammates about defense because he takes so much pride in that end of the floor himself.
“I mean, it’s easy for me, just from the sense, because they don’t want to play defense, so you can’t get on guys or expect guys to do something where you’re not doing it. So on a defensive end, it’s easy for me to go to guys and get on them, or just tell them what we need from defensively, what we need from our defense, knowing that I’m a bring it defensively as well. And the guys responded.”
Anthony Davis: Lakers wanted to exceed Kings’ energy
Saturday marked the first game for the Kings with Doug Christie as head coach after deciding to part ways with Mike Brown.
With a new coach in place, Anthony Davis knew the Kings would come out with a lot of energy and he said the Lakers were focused on exceeding that.
“We knew that they were probably going to come in with a little bit more energy,” Davis said. “Anytime you get a coaching trade or a trade, it kind of brings a new life to the team in a sense. So, we just wanted to exceed their energy, exceed their physicality and we did a good job of that tonight for the most part. In the fourth quarter, it was tough starting the fourth.
“But for the most part, I think we did a good job of defending those guys and managing the energy that we thought that they would have coming off of the coaching change.”
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