The Lakers came away with their fifth straight win against the Pelicans on Saturday, but things looked a little shaky in the first half.
It should have been an easy get, given how decimated with injury NOLA was, but the Lakers trailed by ten at the half due to their lack of hustle in defense.
But Anthony Davis, who ended the night with 31 points, 14 rebounds, two steals and a block, wasn’t perturbed.
“I wouldn’t say it’s frustrating,” Davis said. “Just because we understand where we are, I mean this is the second night of a back-to-back. Everybody goes through it. And like I said, they were making some shots early on. We had some good looks early on and just missed them. AR shot one off the side of the backboard wide open, like that never happens. So we had great looks, missed some bunnies around the rim.
“We weren’t too discouraged. We actually had some pretty good defensive quarters, and we did ultimately hold them to 99 points, so our defensive rating I’m pretty sure was good this game. It was offensively where we were struggling, we knew that team was gonna play hard and they weren’t going to give up no matter who they were playing. And who was playing for them. So we just had to stay with it, stay connected, stay together and ultimately executed down the stretch.”
The Lakers eventually limited the Pels shot selection in the second stanza, and Lakers coach JJ Redick explained his mindset and what he said to his troops at the break.
“Honestly, our defense was good, at least our first shot defense in the first half,” Redick said. “I think they shot 36% on their first shot, it was the 12 offensive rebounds that killed us. Made it very clear they were going to crash at a really high rate. And the game was going to come down to whether or not they could get more possessions than us. Our guys, I thought in the third quarter, defensively had a really good mindset. We were able to collect some offensive rebounds, they ended with six, I think in the second half. But, there wasn’t really an adjustment defensively. It was just get the f—ing ball, you know? That was all it was.”
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