As the regular season winds down, every game matters for Anthony Davis and the Los Angeles Lakers. After a successful six-game road trip, L.A. now shifted its focus to the final three home games before the Play-In Tournament or the playoffs.
This mini homestand kicked off with no easy task on Saturday with the Cleveland Cavaliers, who are the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference. Despite their recent struggles, the Cavaliers still possess star guard talent in Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell.
However, the Lakers were able to shut down Cleveland offensively, holding them to an impressive 97 points. Garland scored 26 points and Mitchell was held to 10 points, which is no easy feat, but Davis believed the team’s defense got them the win.
“Defense,” Davis said. “We were able to come out and held that team to under 100. They got a lot of firepower offensively, and the first game back off a long road trip are usually the toughest, and it was an early game. So we want to make sure that we have extra energy, especially on the defensive end, and we did that today, and that kind of led to our offense, especially in the third quarter when we couldn’t score. I think it was 11 to two to start the third, and we just kept getting stops, kept getting stops, and I was able to break it back open in the middle of the third. So even when the offense wasn’t clicking, we got better on our defense, and we did a great job today.”
Since coming out of the All-Star break, the Lakers struggled to rekindle that fire on the defensive end. However, with a performance like this, Davis believes the team is very close to reaching its full potential on defense.
“We really close,” he said. “We’re covering for each other, we’re talking. Obviously, we’re missing Vando. I’m not sure when his return is, but AR is taking on a lot of big matchups. We’re confident as a defense. … We’re all stepping up defensively just to cover for the big piece that we are missing, but I think we are on the string right now defensively.”
With another challenge on Sunday against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the expectation is that the Lakers can build upon this performance and transfer it against Anthony Edwards. L.A. could become a dangerous team in the postseason if this defense becomes a regularity.
Darvin Ham applauds Anthony Davis’ dedication amid knee issue
Davis is on pace for one of the healthiest seasons of his career, and without him in the lineup, the Lakers’ defense is not the same. At this point of the season, every player is dealing with an ailment, and head coach Darvin Ham commends the big man for fighting through his knee injury.