The Lakers won their first game coming out of the All-Star Break on Friday night, beating what could be their first-round matchup in the playoffs. Yes, the Lakers won 117-105, beating Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies in Staples Center.
Here’s our recap of the contest.
LeBron James with 32 points, Anthony Davis with seven blocks.
One Laker who had a pretty impressive offensive performance tonight was The King as he dropped 32 points in the win. It’s funny, I was a little surprised to check the box score and see that LeBron had that much. But that’s just the blessing of watching LeBron for your favorite team. He doesn’t seem like he’s having an explosive game just because you’re used to him just balling out with a nice 35/12/10 line like it’s nothing. He posts a modest 32/7/3 and you think “sure, that was nice”.
Anthony Davis missed pretty much all of the first quarter (more on that later), but he also put in a good one, finishing with 28 points, 13 rebounds, but most impressively, seven blocks. Seven blocks in 30 minutes of play. That’s insane.
It’s hard, to me, to make a case for any other Laker being the hardest worker on the team. He seems like he’s always giving 100% no matter how big or small the specific game is.
Lakers lose their big lead in the third quarter
The Lakers extended their lead to 25 early on in the third quarter, as the came out of the intermission firing on all cylinders. However, that lead was slowly trimmed along the course of the third quarter, as the Lakers went into the final frame only up 84-77.
They eventually pulled it out, but it really would have been nice to go into the fourth up by a large margin so that the Lakers could possibly rest LeBron James and Anthony Davis. That wasn’t the case, as the Lakers’ defense that gave up 22 and 19 in the first and second quarters, respectively, gave up 36 in the third quarter which just should never happen no matter who is in.
Anthony Davis leaves momentarily in the first minute of the game
The game started out with some nerves, as Anthony Davis came up limping after a play on defense.
Anthony Davis heads to the bench with what looks like a right calf issue 😬 pic.twitter.com/9ZH08vifU5
— ClutchPoints NBA (@ClutchPointsNBA) February 22, 2020
Luckily he came back early on in the second quarter, with Mike Trudell of Spectrum SportsNet reporting in the broadcast that he was going to give the calf a go after a couple of times of running up-and-down the floor. Although he seemed to be a little slow early on, he finished the game strong with a pretty impressive game for only basically playing three quarters.
We’ll be sure to keep you updated on whether or not his availability is impacted moving forward, although that is doubtful given how good he was when he came back.
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The Lakers will suit back up early on Sunday, as they’ll welcome the Boston Celtics into town at 12:30 p.m. PST. It should be noted that Kemba Walker’s status for the game may be up in the air.
