The Los Angeles Lakers suffered a huge loss on Sunday evening against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Without LeBron James and with Anthony Davis suffering an early eye injury that limited him to only 12 minutes, Rui Hachimura had to lead the way.
He did so, finishing with 30 points, but the Lakers lost by 10 and fell back to the No. 9 seed in the Western Conference with only three games remaining on their schedule.
James and Davis have both been very available for the Lakers this season. James has played in 68 of the Lakers’ 79 games and Davis 74. Unlike the previous three seasons, this iteration of the Lakers has not had to get used to playing games without either in the lineup. This made the final three quarters of Sunday’s game particularly strange, and the results showed.
Hachimura, the only Laker to finish above 20 points in the loss, spoke about what it’s like to play without James or Davis in the lineup and what kind of adjustments needs to be made from that moving forward.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” Hachimura said. “Two of the main guys didn’t play tonight. But no excuse, we’ve been through this before. Just the whole situation, back-to-back after all the road games… So it’s was a tough one tonight. But we’ll get a little rest tomorrow and get ready for Tuesday.”
Tuesday’s game against the Golden State Warriors becomes all the more important now that L.A. has suffered a loss. They had won nine of their previous 10 games. Hachimura discussed what needs to happen for the Lakers to return home and get the victory.
“Just get healthy first. We got to recover,” Hachimura said. “We went on the road and had a back-to-back right away so we got to rest tomorrow. That’s gonna be the key, I feel like. We got to bring the energy back. We got to finish these three games, it’s gonna be road games again too so rest up tomorrow and get ready for Tuesday.”
The Lakers forward had a great night despite the loss, and believes he took advantage of not having James or Davis in the lineup.
“Just being aggressive, especially with Bron and AD out. They put me in a lot of action tonight so I was able to get touches and be aggressive on the offensive side. Just be myself.”
The Lakers will hopefully have both James and Davis back on Tuesday against the Warriors, and they’ll need it, as a 3-0 record would almost certainly secure them back in the driver’s seat on being in the No. 7-No. 8 matchup of the Play-In Tournament instead of the No. 9-No. 10.
Optimism Anthony Davis plays vs. Warriors
Reports say that Davis, who was hit in the eye against the Timberwolves and sat out the remainder of the game, should be available against the Warriors. Darvin Ham did not have any updates postgame, only saying that it was a similar place that he got hit earlier this season.
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