The Los Angeles Lakers secured their fifth straight win on Saturday night against the New Orleans Pelicans, winning 104-99 on the road. It’s the first time this season they have held an opponent below 100 points. It was spearheaded by 31 points, 14 rebounds, two steals and a block from Anthony Davis.
But the Lakers had to clean things up in the second half in order to steal this road win on the second night of a back-to-back. L.A. trailed 56-46 at the half but won the second half 58-43. 56 points, while not horrible in a vacuum, is made worse when looking at how many injured players the Pelicans are dealing with.
So after the game, Davis was asked if the lack of defensive intensity in the first half was difficult for him and the Lakers. He responded to that, and gave a detailed explanation of the Lakers’ energy levels in the game.
“I wouldn’t say it’s frustrating,” Davis said. “Just because we understand where we are, I mean this is the second night of a back-to-back. Everybody goes through it. And like I said, they were making some shots early on. We had some good looks early on and just missed them. AR shot one off the side of the backboard wide open, like that never happens. So we had great looks, missed some bunnies around the rim.
“We weren’t too discouraged. We actually had some pretty good defensive quarters, and we did ultimately hold them to 99 points, so our defensive rating I’m pretty sure was good this game. It was offensively where we were struggling, we knew that team was gonna play hard and they weren’t going to give up no matter who they were playing. And who was playing for them. So we just had to stay with it, stay connected, stay together and ultimately executed down the stretch.”
On the second night of a back-to-back, some sluggishness is to be expected. But with the way the Lakers tightened up in the second half, Davis has a point in saying that the energy was never necessarily lacking.
And with the final tally under 100, there is a case to be made that this was the best defensive game of the season for L.A., even if it came against a depleted Pelicans team.
JJ Redick discusses Lakers’ defensive rebounding struggled
While the Lakers may not have been playing bad defense, the Pelicans were simply outworking L.A. in the first half on the offensive glass. There was a lot of ball watching and lack of boxing out, which led to trailing by as many as 15 in the second quarter.
Thankfully, the Lakers cleaned that up in the second half by limiting New Orleans to one shot and despite having limited fire power, the purple and gold got back into the game and eventually came away with the win. Redick kept his message simple during intermission and it was a matter of will, nothing to do with X’s and O’s.
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