The Los Angeles Lakers were able to pull away from the Atlanta Hawks in the second half of their victory on Friday night, particularly in the fourth quarter when they held their opponents to just 16 points. Defense has been the calling card of this team over the past few weeks and of course, Anthony Davis is the team’s leader on that end of the court.
Davis was dominant once again despite a rough shooting night offensively. Even still, the big man finished with 18 point, 19 rebounds, three blocks and three steals. After the game, head coach JJ Redick mentioned that he was unhappy with the Lakers’ defensive performance in the first half and Davis echoed those feelings.
“We weren’t doing what we were supposed to be defensively,” Davis said. “We were giving up transition buckets, makes and misses. That’s the way that they are able to stay in the game. Turnovers, we had nine at half, which is a lot for us. When we got in the halfcourt, some of our defensive principles that we had for the game were with a little bit of slippage. We corrected it in the second half.”
The important thing is that the Lakers identified and corrected those issues and it ultimately led to a win. The team is beginning to turn the corner and has played much better as of late and Davis feels that is due to the Lakers learning each other’s tendencies and trusting each other more.
“We’re still trying to figure that out on both ends of the floor and trusting each other defensively. We know there are going to be mistakes offensively,” Davis added. “I think we figured it out as well, and we’re playing really well. But it’s just a matter of keeping it going. Obviously, we’re sharing a basketball with a high in assists again tonight. We’ve got to shoot the ball with confidence.
“When you get the chance to play basketball for a long time with the same group, you start to free up guys’ tendencies. We know Rui [Hachimura] is a corner cutter, so when we’re driving, you can dump it off there. Depending on who we’re playing, [we’re] trying to put certain guys in actions and making reads out of that. We’re just figuring it out on both ends, and we’ve just got to do it again on the two-game road trip.”
As Davis said, the Lakers have an upcoming two-game road trip in Texas against the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks, two teams who are right there alongside the Lakers in the packed Western Conference standings. The big man noted the importance of these two upcoming games.
“Yeah. I mean, we just want to keep it going,” Davis said. “We know that, obviously, it’s a race in the standings and Houston is one of them teams that’s above us. They’re there right now. So getting a win there, and then obviously Dallas, tough team as well. … So treating as a business trip, for sure. And starting with a tough opponent, come Sunday, and try to get a first win there and then focus on Dallas.”
If the Lakers are able to leave Texas with a pair of wins against two of the better teams in the West, it would go a long way towards legitimizing the Lakers as contenders and further increase the team’s confidence in what they can accomplish.
Anthony Davis says Lakers want to be great, not good
The Lakers are playing much better basketball as of late, but the team as a whole still has higher hopes for what they can accomplish. Head coach JJ Redick doesn’t want to settle for just being good, but wants the Lakers to be great and Anthony Davis feels they have the potential to be that.
“He told us, he don’t want us to be a good team. He wants to be a great team,” Davis said. “So that’s playing damn near perfect basketball every night. It takes a lot of hard work, exertion to be great every night. So we know the potential that we have in his group. We just got to do it on a night in, night out basis.”
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