Without Anthony Davis in the midst of their defense, the Lakers are helpless against anyone. Without Davis’s danger on the back line, the Warriors scored 70 points in the first half, 104 points through three quarters, and 134 points in total. When Davis left the game against Minnesota on Sunday due to an eye injury, the same thing happened. Although he has shown remarkable durability this season, the Lakers have suffered greatly without him in their last two games as they attempt to avoid the 9/10 play-in game that takes place next week.
Tuesday night, when the Golden State Warriors went to Crypto.com Arena to play the Los Angeles Lakers in their final home game of the season, provided a sneak peek at a possible Western Conference play-in tournament.
This was the fourth meeting between these two teams this season; the Warriors prevailed 134-120 in the last regular-season encounter. With three games remaining, the Warriors are now a half-game behind the Lakers.
With the regular season coming to an end on Sunday and the play-in tournament approaching, all eyes will be focused on this potential epic postseason matchup between these two Western Conference rivals. However, these teams are no strangers to high-stakes games.
No Davis, no opportunity. Without Davis on the court, the Lakers’ defense resembled a rotating door, as Ramona noted. The Lakers had won eight of their previous nine games going into Sunday; however, they have now lost two straight, and their chances of avoiding the play-in round are now very small. The other lesson is to never write off Golden State in a playoff setting. If the season ended today, the Warriors would still need to defeat the Lakers and one of the Suns or Kings in order to go to the first round. But the Warriors’ veterans showed that they were playing with a feeling of urgency.
For any team with one player and one game left to win, this is a fairly elite dilemma. Imagine what discussions the ownership of the Lakers and Warriors had before to the trade deadline if they were on the same club. James wins this one merely because he can control the game and spends a lot of time on the ball. Curry may be roughed up by larger, stronger teams and requires a partner to lead the Warriors’ offense. When he’s having one of his flurries, though, he’s still the most explosive attacking player available.
Thompson Klay. The Warriors still appear to be contenders when Klay is making baskets. Golden State is 8-1 when Thompson has a game score of 20 or above, including Tuesday night, even though he lost his best game of the season by game score, according to Basketball-Reference.com. The Warriors are 2-10 in the 12 games that Thompson has had a game score below five. Given how Thompson has historically struggled against the Lakers—including shooting 34% in the team’s playoff defeat last year—that might have been bad news going into a game against them, but in his last two meetings in Los Angeles, he has scored 53 points on 19 of 31 shots.