Anthony Davis delivers a reminder that the Lakers are titans
Dame hurt his finger, but he will play in Game 3
After a Game 1 of luxury in which Anthony Davis settled for long two after long two, Davis demonstrated a well-known truth that he isn’t just a one-dimensional jump-shooter. Luckily for the Blazers, that’s the only major lesson they had to leave with tonight. Damian Lillard left the game in the third quarter with a dislocated left index finger but with x-rays coming back negative, Lillard said his finger is tender, but that he has absolutely no doubt that he will be ready to play in Saturday evening’s Game 3.
“Oh, I’m playing,” Lillard responded when asked by a national reporter who doesn’t know Dame’s pain tolerance or how much this current run means to him. None of the Blazers, including Terry Stotts, were in the mood for discussing doubts about what comes next or a second-guessing of what just happened. When asked about Lillard playing when Portland was down 30, Stotts deadpanned that Lillard was “playing basketball.” The Lakers just played better basketball than the Blazers tonight.
Davis, indicative of the Lakers, was playing the best basketball on Thursday night. He used his size and weight advantage on Wenyen Gabriel while also being aggressive on the offensive glass, taking advantage of poor boxouts by Portland’s big man trio of Jusuf Nurkic, Hassan Whiteside and Carmelo Anthony. After the second chances started to work, Davis was feeling himself with the jumper and the game was basically over after shots like this.
The Lakers stuck with the starting lineup that had powered them to a No. 1 ranking in the West during the regular season and their big men delivered important results. JaVale McGee’s game-high 5 offensive rebounds proved to be a backbreaking type of play for the Blazers, who have done well defending initial shots but have been beat badly on the defensive glass in the first two games by L.A.
Whiteside and Nurkic have to be better. And while Wenyen is doing his best, I’m starting to wonder whether my initial impulse to start Whiteside and Nurkic together merits revisiting. Nurk and Whiteside came back to earth tonight, being outscored by 12 points after posting a +13 in Game 1, according to NBA.com. Basically, as poor as Portland’s perimeter players shot the ball, the formula for Portland is staring the Blazers in the face. Their two seven-footers have to play better. The same goes for the Hall of Famer who is on the wing and the young Bull who pushed them here.
Carmelo Anthony and Gary Trent Jr. were due for some anonymous performances after what they did to get Portland here. But if they are going to win this series and shock the world, disappearances like the last few games, save for the 4th quarter of Game 1, cannot happen.
The Lakers’ defense showed they could execute their gameplan even better in Game 1 and Davis showed that he isn’t just content to shoot jumpers. Portland knew this series wasn’t going to be easy, but if their two bigs fail to show up while Davis continues to play the way he did tonight, this Cinderella story might be getting close to midnight.