It’s been a lackluster couple of games for Los Angeles Lakers star Anthony Davis, who has cooled off after a recent hot stretch scoring the basketball.
After a heartbreaking loss to the Dallas Mavericks, most would’ve expected Davis to exact his revenge against the Orlando Magic but that never came to pass. Instead, Davis responded with a meager 15 points on 6-of-15 shooting from the field but fortunately, the bench was able to make up for his lack of scoring with their energy.
The Magic did everything to try and limit Davis offensively, but Darvin Ham said that he and the coaching staff are going to look at how to get the star big man more touches in the flow of the offense.
“We’ll find that. We’ll move him around,” Ham said. “It’s easier to do that when he’s trying to post up. But when he’s on the run, he’s trailing the play and we’re able to flip the ball back to him and have him face up in the middle of the floor, it’s a lot more difficult to guard him and double-team him. So we’ll move him around in different spaces, playing in transition, pick-and-rolls, DHO actions and try to see that.
“But with that said, we still have to go out and if they’re taking that away from him, we have to accept what’s being taken away and go to something else, which we have a lot of ‘something else’ in terms of DLo’s ability to create, Beas’ ability to shoot, Dennis and Austin off the bench. We just have to play more second and third style basketball, which is fine by me. We just have to explore our offense a little more if they take away the initial iso or post-up with AD.”
One of the few valid critiques regarding Davis is his tendency to float in the middle of games so force-feeding him the ball to keep him engaged doesn’t seem like a bad idea. However, to Ham’s point, if teams are dead set on making sure Davis doesn’t get his then the Lakers have enough talent around him to make it work on the offensive end.
Still, getting Davis back up to superstar form should be a priority for the coaching staff and they’ll need that kind of play from him when they take on the Phoenix Suns.
Darvin Ham expects LeBron James to return at some point during 2022-23 season
Davis has done well for the most part carrying Los Angeles, but the team can’t hit their ceiling until LeBron James comes back. On that front, Ham had good news as he said the Lakers expect James to return at some point during the 2022-23 season.
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