Los Angeles Lakers star Anthony Davis has been playing some of the best basketball in his career in recent weeks, which has been much-needed as the team tries to claw their way back into postseason contention.
Not only has Davis stayed healthy so far this season, but he has actually improved his playmaking, making him a huge threat on both sides of the ball.
That was the case on Wednesday night against the Dallas Mavericks when Davis led the Lakers to a blowout victory, nearly missing the third triple-double of his career and second in the last week.
Davis finished the night with 28 points on 12-of-17 shooting, also adding 12 rebounds, nine assists, one steal and one block in just 33 minutes of action. The big man got it going early in the first quarter and maintained his dominance throughout to help L.A. cruise to a win.
After the game, Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd was asked how to slow down Davis when he gets it going and didn’t have an answer.
“You can’t. You can’t. He’s playing at a very high level,” Kidd said. “We said that before the game, they’re playing to him. He’s getting to the basket, to the free throw line. You got to try to double team him and then he’s relying on playing on the perimeter to beat the double team. So you just got to try to make it as hard as possible and hope he misses at the right time. But tonight he played well.”
Kidd knows what Davis is capable of as well as anyone as he was an assistant on the Lakers during their 2019-20 championship season and the following year.
Something that Kidd pointed out is that the Lakers are now playing through Davis, which has been talked about for years but was never put into action until now.
Everyone knows how dominant Davis is on the defensive end, but he has been making strides offensively that could put him in the MVP conversation if things continue to trend this way.
With the Lakers playing through Davis, teams have begun double-teaming him more. In the past, this has been able to bother Davis and essentially take him out of games, but that is no longer the case.
Davis has improved immensely at passing out of those double-teams as the result has been 25 assists in his last three games and averaging 5.15 assists in his last 13.
Davis’ improved playmaking will only help the Lakers moving forward with offense being one of their main issues so far this season.
Anthony Davis: ‘tough’ to assess Lakers at halfway point of season
At 21-21, the Lakers have reached the halfway point of the regular season. The year has already been filled with ups and downs for the Lakers, but when asked to assess how things have gone, Davis noted that is tough to do considering how many injuries and lineup changes they’ve been forced to deal with.
Regardless of how the first half went, the Lakers have a chance to turn things around in the second half and Davis will be at the forefront of that.”
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