All Ball Sports: The consistently inconsistent Laker, and a look far into the future
by Paul Teetor
Anthony Davis was scheduled to have a great game Saturday night in game three of the Lakers semifinal playoff series with the Golden State Warriors. And he did exactly that, leading the Lakers to a 127-97 rout, and a 2-1 series lead with 25 points, 13 rebounds and four blocked shots.
How do we know he was scheduled to have a great game? Because for the entire first round against the Memphis Grizzlies and now again in the second round against the Warriors, the 6-foot-10, multi-skilled forward/center has alternated good games with bad games.
Every single time, so far, in the nine playoff games the Lakers have played, he has been great, then awful, then great again, and then awful again.
You could say he’s been consistently inconsistent.
That means he is scheduled to have a bad game Monday night in the pivotal game four at the Crypt.
We say pivotal because if the Lakers win that game they will go up 3-1 in the series and have a virtual lock on a trip to the Western Conference Finals – something that seemed absolutely inconceivable when the Lakers started the season with an abominable 2-10 record way back in October and November.
But if the Lakers lose Monday night the series will have a totally different dynamic. If the Lakers have to travel to the Bay Area tied 2-2 with the Warriors, they could well be in serious trouble. Golden State rarely loses on its home court at the Chase Center.
The Splash Brothers, better known as Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, usually shoot the lights out with the high-tech, high-roller home crowd exploding at every crazy three-pointer that somehow goes in from absurd distances.
And once the Splash Brothers get rolling, fellow sharp shooter Jordan Poole usually joins in the fun. With the three of them launching on-target laser beams from all over the court a game can get out of hand very quickly, as it did in Game 2 when the Warriors put a 27-point beatdown on the Lakers, 127-100.
While the hoops world waits to see which AD shows up Monday night – passive, listless AD or energized, aggressive AD – Lakers fans were savoring LeBron’s Saturday night performance, a performance that should be bottled and put into a time capsule.
He started the game looking like a zombie, failing to take a single shot in the first quarter and a half. He did hand out five assists, but without him bulling his way to the basket there was no point of attack for the Lakers, just a bunch of average outside shooters launching shots and hoping the ball goes in.
The result could have been predicted: the Warriors raced ahead to a 40-29 lead midway through the second quarter and looked to be headed for their second straight rout of the Lakers.
That’s when LeBron finally took his first shot, getting fouled and hitting his two free throws. That flipped the switch on his motor and for the rest of the second quarter and for the entire third quarter, fans got to see a vintage LeBron James performance as he scored 10 points in the second quarter, and 11 in the third.
It peaked mid-way through the third quarter when he got the entire crowd up, and cheering to the rafters as Golden State’s Andrew Wiggins was about to score on a break-away layup only to have LeBron race down-court full speed to block his shot. His momentum carried him into the courtside seats in back of the basket and well up the runway leading away from the court.
As LeBron scrambled back onto the court delirious Lakers fans slapped him on the back and offered high-fives, sensing that the game had just turned thanks to his extraordinary hustle play.
And indeed, it had. Next possession he bulled his way into the paint, did a full 360-spin that left two Warriors lunging at air, and banked in a layup. Then he hit a couple of free throws and drilled a 15-foot jumper over a leaping Klay Thompson.
Suddenly the Lakers had a 20-point lead and both teams sensed that this once tight game was now over. Lakers Coach Darvin Ham said the rest of the players – including AD – drew inspiration from LeBron’s super-charged plays when the Lakers most needed it.
“Him putting that effort out really got us rolling,” Ham said. “You see a guy like that, a year 20 guy, a first ballot Hall of Famer, top five dead or alive to ever play in the NBA, to see him doing the little things like that, screening, defending, rebounding, makes it easier to get these other guys to do it too.”
He warned no one should take comfort from the Lakers having a 2-1 lead over the NBA’s defending champions.
“You relax one second or start feeling comfortable, they’re going to burn you every time,” Ham said.
In the Warriors locker room, Klay Thompson said Golden State’s record of winning four NBA titles over the last nine years will help them recover from this 30-point blowout.
“We’ve been through more adversity than a 2-1 deficit,” Thompson said.
Indeed, in the first round the sixth seeded Warriors let the third-seeded Sacramento Kings take a 2-0 lead before roaring back to win four of the next five games, to win the series 4-3 with a 20-point game seven win on Sacramento’s home court.
There’s only one man who can stop that kind of nightmare from happening to the Lakers and their rabid fans, and that’s Anthony Davis. LeBron will always be LeBron, the ultimate competitor and leader.
But Davis is the ultimate trick-or-treat player.
Monday night Lakers fans will be praying for a treat.
Good news for USC fans
And in related news, LeBron’s oldest son, Bronny James, finally announced his choice of colleges after months of fevered speculation that the McDonald’s All-American out of Chatsworth Sierra Canyon High School will attend either UCLA or USC.
On Saturday afternoon, Bronny revealed he had chosen USC over UCLA, Oregon and Ohio State.
The Trojans already had the nation’s highest rated recruit, point guard Isaiah Collier. Now James, rated the 33rd best prep player in the nation by 247Sports, will be joining him to give coach Andy Enfield his best set of recruits since the Mobley brothers, Evan and Isaiah, announced their commitment five years ago. The 6-foot-3 James averaged 14 points, six rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals last season for a Sierra Canyon team loaded with Division 1 players.
Staying close to home plays right into LeBron’s long-held dream that he will get to play with his son in the NBA before he retires at some unspecified point in the future. Since Bronny is likely to be a first-round draft pick but not a high lottery pick whenever he comes out of college, it is easy to envision the Lakers working some kind of deal to get a pick that will enable them to bring him onto the Lakers to join his dad.
There’s nothing more heart-warming than a father and son reunion – especially on a basketball court.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. Follow: @paulteetor. ER