Everything went the way of the Denver Nuggets on Saturday night in their matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers. Despite a solid first half from Anthony Davis and company, the second half was all Nuggets, including a stellar performance from former Laker Russell Westbrook.
Westbrook played 24 minutes, finishing with 14 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds on 6-for-10 shooting and was a plus-17 on the night. It was the type of performance that the Lakers tried to pull out of Westbrook for his year-and-a-half with the team but never could.
Davis praised Westbrook for what he brings to the Nuggets in general. But he also believes the Nuggets probably helped give Westbrook some extra motivation to give his best performance against L.A.
“I mean, just for their team, he brings that energy,” Davis said. “You know how Russ plays; he plays hard and made some shots and some steals. You play how Russ plays; I’m pretty sure those guys know the history with us and probably amped him up a little bit more.
“But you know, when he comes in the game, he’s very disruptive and brings that juice for them, especially when he’s making plays. So I think that kind of helped them a lot tonight.”
The Lakers could have very much benefitted from having the type of Westbrook that played against them on Saturday night. He was efficient from the field, got others involved, limited mistakes and brought energy to the second and first unit.
Westbrook has always been the type of player that needed to adjust his game if he wanted to elongate his career, and it’s possible the Nuggets have found the formula for doing so. Or, it’s possible that they got the best out of Westbrook given the motivation of playing the Lakers.
Anthony Davis: teams are taking advantage of rebounding issues
Unfortunately, L.A.’s game against the Nuggets played out as each contest has played out in the recent 14 meetings. The purple and gold hung around, took a respectable lead, and then crumbled in the second half.
Particularly in the third quarter, the Lakers’ offense stagnated and stopped generating good looks. That led to settling for jump shots and sloppy turnovers, allowing Denver to get out on the break.
That was combined with the inability to finish defensive possessions with rebounds, which has been an issue for the Lakers all season. Anthony Davis knows that opposing teams are taking advantage of those two issues when scouting for L.A.
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