The Los Angeles Lakers have been at their best when Anthony Davis has been dominant. While LeBron James has had some excellent stretches as well, it is clear that the Lakers’ offense should run through Davis as he has been unstoppable at times, especially when he is living in the paint.
Of course other teams know this as well and are doing everything possible to limit Davis’ impact offensively. Teams such as the Chicago Bulls and Toronto Raptors have doubled Davis relentlessly in recent games and the result has been him barely getting shot attempts up. The Los Angeles Clippers employed that same strategy on Wednesday as well and it helped carry them to a win over the Lakers.
Now, it will be on the Lakers to be able to counter those double teams and make the opposition pay when they do so. Following the loss to the Clippers, James stressed the need for the rest of the team to go into every game thinking teams will double Davis to be in the right spots at the right time to make them pay, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“We got to be in the right spots at the right time. We got to put ourselves in position, put guys in position to be successful. We should go into every game with the mindset that teams are gonna double AD because of how great of a player he is.”
Davis is a more than willing passer out of the post and the Lakers have the players capable of hurting teams when he is getting too much attention. D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, Malik Beasley and Troy Brown Jr. are all great shooters with Russell and Reaves also being more than capable of attacking the rim off of closeouts as well.
The Lakers coaching staff also plays a role in this as running certain sets and getting Davis the ball on the move more, instead of always in a stationary position, will make it much harder for teams to send a second defender his way.
But as LeBron said, being in the right spots, ready to attack and successfully doing so will open things up to allow Davis to do what he does best and dominate inside.
LeBron James says Lakers starters stayed in vs. Clippers to build chemistry
Even though the outcome was decided against the Clippers, the Lakers starters remained in the game late. With fatigue and injury concerns around the team, many wondered if that was the best decision, but James revealed the reason for that.
After the contest, LeBron noted that the Lakers still lack some consistency with their lineups and staying on the court for those minutes allows them to see some things on film that they can correct. The Lakers star also noted that scrimmaging and real court time isn’t an option at this stage of the season so the film sessions are the best way to find the issues and correct them.
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