Los Angeles Lakers star Anthony Davis suffered a scary injury in the first quarter of the team’s loss to the Golden State Warriors on Saturday night. He was hit in the eye by Trayce Jackson-Davis on a drive to the rim and it almost immediately began swelling up. He missed the remainder of the game, and by the end of the night his eye was completely shut.
Davis quickly went to work on getting the swelling down and restoring vision in that eye. He was able to do enough to play against the Atlanta Hawks on Monday night. Not only that, he put up 22 points and 15 rebounds in 31 minutes of action and was a game-high plus-28. After the game, Davis spoke about the injury and how he’s feeling in the few days after.
The Lakers star wouldn’t go into full detail on the injury but he revealed that everything should be OK moving forward.
“Yeah, just went to the eye doctor. Figuring things out,” Davis said. “That’s all I can tell y’all right now. … I’m not telling y’all something for sure. … Just got to do a couple more things, but after those things, everything should be fine.”
Davis said he has no plans to wear protective lenses unless a doctor tells him to, which he said was not the recommendation at the moment.
“No. I’ve been through that phase in high school. I’m out of that phase,” Davis joked. “I mean, obviously, if the doctors told me that I needed it. I asked that question. Obviously. I didn’t need it. They said if I wanted to, but I didn’t need it. So I wasn’t planning on wearing it.”
He went into detail on just how bad things got on Saturday night and what happened between the end of the first quarter when he suffered the injury and Monday when he decided he was good to play.
“Just couldn’t see,” Davis said. “The corneal abrasion was actually like right in the middle of my eye. So it wasn’t like off to the side. So, anytime I looked, it was like blurry. My eye was swollen. I thought my eye was like open but it wasn’t and just kept watering. Felt like sand was just in my eye.
“So it was just better closed, and I couldn’t really see, so I just been icing it since Saturday after the first quarter and just got better later that night. Swelling went down. Just kind of stayed like in darkness. Went to go see the doctor on Sunday morning and some more things that we end up finding out but it was really, really tough for me to see.”
But in good news, the doctors have said Davis’ vision is back to 100% even if the swelling has not gone all the way down.
“I went to the eye doctor, and my vision is good. I’m still 20-15, so I feel good about that. But I can see clearly. I got my eyes dilated today. Before, it was still a little blurry just from the dilation, but I’m good now.”
The Lakers are fortunate for Davis to be able to recover from this injury quickly, as they cannot afford to have him miss time right now given where they are in the standings and the other injuries they’re already dealing with.
L.A. also has until Friday before their next game, meaning he has a chance to be fully recovered by the time he takes the floor again.
Jaxson Hayes discusses focus when Anthony Davis is out
Jaxson Hayes played 28 minutes in Davis’ missed game and finished with seven points to go along with a season-high 12 rebounds. Hayes knows how important Davis is to the Lakers, but he discussed his focus when the star center is out and he is forcing into playing more minutes.
“For me, it was just trying to do all the little things right. It was a real strategic defensive game and we just had to crash the glass because I knew AD was gone. That’s about it,” Hayes said.
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