Lakers News: Anthony Davis Flip-Flops When Asked How L.A. Can Improve
Los Angeles Lakers All-Star center/power forward Anthony Davis enjoyed a decent individual night, scoring 21 points while grabbing nine rebounds, but his Lakers still fell by double digits, 114-101, last night against a much, much, much deeper Clippers at Crypto.com Arena.
After the contest, Davis noted that the team's defense needed to catch up to their offense, which has been their refrain for the past few days.
Here is the pertinent quote from Davis:
"We live with our schemes and that's making [opponents] shoot tough twos. I think Pat [Beverley] did a great job against Paul." I'm not so sure, Paul George sprung lose and scored 29 points for the Clippers last night. "It's early," Davis continued. "I mean, we're starting to figure everything out offensively. Defense is self-inflicted. We know how good we are defensively, we've shown it. We have guys out... We obviously dug ourselves a hole. We've been in games because of our defense, and if we get back to defending with where our offense is headed and where it is right now... we can make this [season] look a little better."
We should probably point out that, about a week ago, AD and other Lakers were saying the exact opposite thing.
So... which is it?
Neither. The reality is, this team just isn't very good.
It should be noted that Davis himself has, as usual, been pretty good, averaging 23 points on 54% field goal shooting, grabbing 10.2 rebounds a night, and blocking 1.9 shots. His jump shooting remains middling, and his scoring seems much less positive and impactful than it did while he was a New Orleans Pelican.
This writer had thought the Lakers would be a bit more solid on both ends, even against a tough schedule early on this season, but hadn't really accounted for the fact that the play of L.A. stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis would continue to noticeably dip season-over-season. Without this duo performing at an All-NBA level, the whole house of cards has collapsed.
