Fresh off winning the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament, the Los Angeles Lakers traveled to Texas to kick off a three-game road trip.
The Lakers drew the Dallas Mavericks on the first night of a back-to-back and looked in line for another win because Kyrie Irving was ruled out. However, Los Angeles’ defense failed them throughout the night as they lost a close one to Dallas.
The loss stings because the Lakers got another gem of a performance from Anthony Davis, who scored 37 points and pulled down 11 rebounds. Davis is coming off his best game of the year, but his showing against the Mavericks was even more impressive because he was dealing with a nagging hip injury.
Davis admitted he aggravated it against Dallas and will work with the team on how to best move forward, as seen on Spectrum SportsNet:
“We’ll see how it feels… Went to go test it out pregame and it felt good. There were some moments in the game where I felt it. Kind of tweaked it again but we just got to see how it feels gonna forward. Each and every game, take it a day at a time and then we’ll make decisions from there.”
The star big man had a long list of concerning injuries, but he said that his hip has held up for most of the 2023-24 season before he aggravated it in Saturday’s In-Season Tournament win over the Indiana Pacers:
“I was past the hurdle. Since the Cleveland game, it’s been very fine. The first time I felt it or tweaked it again was on Saturday against Indiana. So that was about a three-week stretch where I felt completely fine and normal, had no problems. So I’m not sure, but I’ll keep getting treatment, keep getting to try to get it to feel good to lace them up.”
It’s concerning that Davis is dealing with yet another injury, though it was hard to tell against Dallas given how much he dominated both ends of the floor. The Lakers don’t get much rest as they take on the San Antonio Spurs on the second night of a back to back, so there’s a real possibility that they choose to sit Davis.
Anthony Davis doesn’t care about outside criticism
Since coming to Los Angeles, there’s been a microscope on Davis who has been adamant that he’s ready to lead the historic franchise. Every time Davis has a bad game, the national media loves to criticize him and knock him down compared to his peers.
However, Davis emphasized he doesn’t care about any outside noise and is focused on himself and the team.
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