With Cam Reddish sitting out of the Los Angeles Lakers’ contest against the Charlotte Hornets, the coaching staff decided to insert Rui Hachimura into the starting lineup in his place. This gave the team another first time starting group with Hachimura joining LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Jarred Vanderbilt and Taurean Prince.
There were certainly some kinks to work out, but ultimately the Lakers got things together and came away with a decisive 133-112 home win. Davis continued his stretch of excellent play with 26 points, eight rebounds and four blocks while Hachimura added 17 points in his start.
While the Lakers did trot out another lineup that hadn’t played together, Davis looked at it as a positive, believing the Lakers’ ability to plug in another highly capable player into the lineup is a good problem to have.
“I just want to say all of the above, you just try it. We got good people problems, man,” Davis said after the win. “We got good problems. You can plug a guy in like Cam, who was out tonight, you can plug in Rui. Obviously we know we haven’t played I think one minute together with the lineup from last year, but we got a lot of different lineups.
“Obviously you want to stick with one lineup and kind of have it set where guys know their rotations and where they’re gonna get their shots and when they’re gonna play, but if we need to make an adjustment, we can always throw anybody in the spot because a lot of guys on our team can actually go anywhere and start so we have good problems.”
The Lakers’ depth was on display against the Hornets which, as Davis noted, is a good problem. It wasn’t just Hachimura starting, but Reddish’s absence also thrust Max Christie into big minutes and he delivered with an excellent all-around performance.
In addition to their depth, the Lakers’ passing ability was also on display as the team totaled 41 assists which Davis revealed was spoken about before the game. “It feels good playing with pace and sharing the basketball,” Davis added.
“Guys were playing for each other, playing the right way. Even though we had some turnovers where we were trying to make the right play or do the right thing, you can live with those. We talked about it before the game, just sharing the basketball, making the right pass when someone is in front of you, throw it ahead and let your teammate make a play and it carried over tonight to the game.”
Overall it was a strong win for the Lakers with Davis and LeBron leading the way and the team’s depth being on display with big performances around the board.
Lakers’ Anthony Davis felt fresher after having two days off
The Lakers’ rough December schedule full of road trips hasn’t left the team many days off as they were usually spent traveling. So having a couple days off at home left Anthony Davis feeling fresher against Charlotte.
“Yeah, I mean I had the lane on a couple plays, Davis noted. “But these games, with a team like this, like I said, they’ve been in a lot of close games so trying to give a little energy to our group to get us going. But I did feel young again after two-and-a-half days really.”
The kicker was Davis throwing down a huge poster dunk on Hornets big man Nick Richards which Davis chalked up to a little love for his fellow Kentucky Wildcat.
“Yeah [laughs]. A little Kentucky on Kentucky love.”
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