Los Angeles Lakers star Anthony Davis has put all of the bad narratives surrounding him to bed this season, playing in 69 of the team’s 74 games and ranking seventh in the league in total minutes played.
As the season has wore on though, he has picked up some minor injuries, including most recently a knee issue after banging knees with Khris Middleton in the recent Lakers win over the Milwaukee Bucks.
The injury forced Davis to miss the game against the Memphis Grizzlies the following night, although he was then able to return against the Indiana Pacers on Friday.
In the Lakers’ first two matchups against the Pacers, Davis was dominant as ever, averaging 38.5 points, 18 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 2.5 blocks in a pair of wins.
He didn’t look like himself this time though as he didn’t appear to be moving at full speed due to the knee issue. Davis is still so good that he finished with a team-high 24 points to go along with 15 rebounds and three assists.
After the game though, Davis admitted that his knee was still feeling sore, especially at the start of the game, as seen on Spectrum SportsNet:
“Still sore. Took me a while to kind of get into the game just because I was still feeling it on a lot of plays. But I’ll be alright.”
With every game being as important as it is, Davis doesn’t expect to miss any more games due to the minor knee injury:
“I’ll get better in a couple days. It’s nothing serious. I played tonight, so I feel like I can play through it. So it’s nothing that I plan to miss any more games for or have to be on a minute restriction or anything of that nature.”
Davis has shown his toughness all season so there’s no doubt that will continue to be the case moving forward until this knee issue passes.
The Lakers need their star center at full strength to do any sort of damage in the postseason though, so hopefully he is not at risk of further injury by playing through it.
Austin Reaves: being Anthony Davis’ teammate makes life easier
Part of the reason the Lakers need Davis healthy and in the lineup is because of how much he cleans up defensively for the rest of the team. Austin Reaves was among those to recently acknowledge that, stating how much being Davis’ teammate makes his life easier on the court.
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