The Los Angeles Lakers had a scare in the third quarter of Saturday night’s game against the Golden State Warriors when Anthony Davis was kneed in the hip and went down in a lot of pain.
Davis has been an ironman for the Lakers this season, playing in 45 of their 47 games and ranking among the league leaders in minutes.
He had dealt with hip spasms earlier in the season though and they popped back up after that he as he walked very gingerly back to the locker room.
After missing some time, Davis was eventually able to return at the start of the fourth quarter and finished out the game. He still put up a monster performance, finishing with 29 points, 13 rebounds, three assists and four blocks in 45 minutes in the Lakers’ double overtime victory.
Despite clearly not playing at 100% health, Davis said after the game that he is feeling OK, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“I’m good. Same as earlier in the year, yeah. I’m good.”
Davis also discussed the physicality of the game and the toll it can take on him playing 45 minutes with a road back-to-back coming up on the schedule:
“It’s tough to get wins in this league, especially in this arena. A game like that, I think it would hurt you to lose. Obviously you leave it all out on the floor, I think every guy in this locker room left it on the floor tonight and in that locker room as well. To lose this one, it would hurt. But to get the win, for us we got three games in four nights and a back-to-back in Houston and Atlanta coming up so we got to take care of our bodies. It’s tiring, for sure, but it’s fun at the same time. When you having fun and leaving it all on the floor, you kind of get that adrenaline, that extra boost that you need to finish basketball games.”
Davis will surely do everything in his power to be ready to go for Monday night’s game against the Houston Rockets. If he is unable to play though then other guys will need to step up, which he praised them for doing against the Warriors:
“Everybody. Bron obviously was Bron and then they tried to put Steph on Vando so he was setting a lot of ball screens. DLo was DLo, the way he’s been the past couple weeks. Just going to that LeBron-DLo pick-and-roll, LeBron-AR pick-and-roll and just creating disadvantages and making plays whether it’s a rebound or putback or something.”
While it’s been an up-and-down season for the Lakers, things are starting to click and Davis’ leadership has been at the forefront of that.
Anthony Davis explains why Lakers offensive is clicking
Anthony Davis has noticed things starting to click for the Lakers, especially offensively, and recently discussed what has allowed that to happen.
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