The Los Angeles Lakers’ contest against the Washington Wizards was one that many would describe as a ‘trap’ game. Coming off a hard-fought road victory against one of the best teams in the league in the Milwaukee Bucks, and with Cleveland, Toronto and Philadelphia coming up on this trip, it would not have been surprising if the Lakers took a breath and relaxed. But Anthony Davis and LeBron James were determined not to let that happen.
The Lakers dominated the Wizards, leading by 18 at halftime and 24 after three quarters with Davis pouring in 55 points and 17 rebounds while LeBron finished with 29 points, eight rebounds and six assists.
After the 11-point victory, LeBron credited the Lakers for their showing in what he called the hardest game to play, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“That’s the hardest game to play, especially on a road trip is when you get a huge win in a place like Milwaukee, hostile environment, to be able to come back that next game and play at a high level, and we did that as close to 48 minutes as possible. Obviously we had a couple lulls, but they were playing desperate basketball and they were just jacking and getting up and down the floor so they caught us on our heels a little bit. But we played a great game again tonight.”
The Wizards did make a run to start the fourth quarter and even Davis admitted that the Lakers took their foot off the gas briefly, but the team would settle down and ultimately put Washington away. The Lakers have now won eight of their last 10 games and James spoke on how the team never got down and just continued to work through their slow start to the season:
“We never tipped over the glass when things weren’t going well. We just continued to work, continued to get better, understood that we were a new team being put together with a new coaching staff and a new system. We had to figure out some things, we had to figure out who we were, what our identity is gonna be, how we wanted to play. We’re still the same way, we haven’t done anything. We wanna continue to work, we gotta continue to put in the work in order for us to get better on both sides of the floor and to be as good of a team as we wanna become.”
It shows the resiliency and overall mindset of this team that they have been able to have this excellent stretch of play after such an awful start. The Lakers have been competitive and as LeBron noted, had to figure out what their identity will be.
It feels like they have done just that, but the work isn’t done. The Lakers still remain below .500 and they have goals they still plan on accomplishing this season and now they look like a team capable of doing so.
LeBron James credits different coaches for helping his game evolve throughout his career
Now in his 20th NBA season, James playing at this high of a level for the Lakers is something that has never been seen, but it is also due to LeBron changing and evolving his game over the years.
And LeBron credited a number of different coaches for forcing him to evolve. The Lakers star admitted to relying on his athleticism for much of his early career, but noted that the likes of Gregg Popovich, Dwayne Casey and Rick Carlisle forced him to get better because of how they defended him.
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