Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Lakers Lose 118-104 to 76ers, Anthony Davis Suffers Abdominal Injury

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everyone, welcome to Lockdown Lakers for Wednesday. Brian Komeneski, Andy Komeneske, the Lakers lose in Philly and may have lost Anthony Davis as well. Not a great Tuesday. We'll break it down next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Locked on Lakers. First, listen to every day Monday through Friday, no matter how or where you get your podcast,

Starting point is 00:00:35 this one's always free and never behind paywall. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 27,000 subscribers to the channel, Andy, all of whom are hoping to erase the memory of what happened on Tuesday in Philadelphia from their brains as quickly as they possibly can. But really what they're hoping is that Anthony Davis, who was injured as the Lakers lost 118 to 104 to a very short-handed Philly squad, in Philly.

Starting point is 00:01:06 Anthony Davis, though, is the big story of this game. He leaves after 10 minutes of playing time and does not return. The Lakers called it an abdominal strain. Asked after the game if he had any information. JJ Reddick simply said, no. It was difficult to know for sure, particularly for us not being in the building, but also there were so much else happening, whether JJ's terse response on this was him being.

Starting point is 00:01:35 worried about Anthony Davis's availability moving forward, being pissed off, mystified, frustrated, whatever about the team's performance tonight, a little bit of column A, a little bit column B. Maybe he doesn't even have to make a decision. But I will say this, JJ made no effort to potentially downplay this as, oh, you know what, precautionary. And, you know, we realize the game was getting out of hand early. We thought there was no reason to put him back. back in, which may have been the reason. I'm just saying I didn't read that from JJ's response. No, and usually they'll say that, oh, you know, the game was out of hand.

Starting point is 00:02:15 By the time we got clearance for him to play, it seemed silly, didn't, you know, we don't want to put him at risk. It's a long season and all that. No, he just said, no. And, you know, if you're somebody who is responsible for Anthony Davis's defense, Player of the Year tape, or you're trying to make, put together like an MVP or a first team all NBA reel or something like that. As it tends to be with the Lakers, what you do is you, instead of showing highlights of Anthony Davis, you just show all the time that he doesn't play.

Starting point is 00:02:52 And what happens to this team, particularly on the defensive side, when he doesn't, because like the second Anthony Davis left the game on Tuesday, the Lakers completely collapsed. Looking up right now, points in the paint, 56 for Philadelphia. I don't know exactly how many of those came after Anthony Davis left the game, but I'm willing to bet many. It was more than a couple. Yeah, the Lakers turned the ball over 22 total times.

Starting point is 00:03:26 Turnovers, even in games, the Lakers are playing reasonably well. Turnovers have become a much bigger problem for this team. they consistently become an issue in games that the Lakers don't play well, and they gave up 27 points in the process with those turnovers. Combined that with 23 points off the break, four, Philly plus Tyrese Maxie going absolutely ham. 43 points, 15 to 26 from the field. He actually checked back into the game about halfway through the fourth quarter

Starting point is 00:04:01 with the game clearly way the hell. out of hand. I imagine with the express purpose of trying to get 50, and frankly, I don't blame him because A, he earned it, B, what the hell else has there been to celebrate in Philly? Might as well give those fans something. Anything to cheer for and all that. And he was sensational in this. He really was. And it didn't matter what the Lakers tried, who the Lakers tried. It was Max Christie, DFS took some minutes there.

Starting point is 00:04:38 You know, Brony James, when he came into the first half, his first job was to try to check Tyrese Maxie that did not go well. I believe his second job was to pass up shots or turn the ball over. That part he did better with. Did that part? And we'll talk about it. People were angry about Brony, I think by the end of the game realized there were other things to be upset about.

Starting point is 00:05:04 But there was a good chance he was going to play as long as Gabe wasn't available. Brony was the symptom, not the disease. And so. And it was a, we'll get into it. It was a very difficult spot for him to be in in the first place. It was. And so the Lakers ended up down Anthony Davis. They were down Jared Vanderbilt, who was sitting out this one for injury maintenance,

Starting point is 00:05:28 not surprising that he's not playing in both ends, but back to back at this point. Gabe Vincent didn't play. And then Dorian Finney Smith and Jackson Hayes in the first half, each picked up about 36 fouls in four and a half minutes. Like the Lakers had some serious foul trouble, and that was contributing to an already wonky rotation. Rui did return at least, and he played reasonably well.

Starting point is 00:05:57 I mean, for 13 points, 6 and 9 from the field. I mean, get into it maybe a little bit later. To me, the one and only bright spot in this game was Dalton Connect, who is starting to look more like the guy that everybody was most optimistic about a couple months ago. Like, he's really starting to play considerably better. Yeah, that slump, that he was really fighting in. I'm not ready to say he's out of it, but he seems comfortable again, which is always a good sign. You can sometimes just look at guys and tell when they feel better.

Starting point is 00:06:39 The NBA is hard, and especially as a rookie, even an older one, you're going to have major swings in how you play. And the Lakers need him to be this guy more than the guy who was doing that. The one period in the game in the first half where it looked like maybe the Lakers were going to find a way to win without Anthony Davis, it was during a stretch where Dalton was hitting shots. Yeah. And look, I mean, they, this is a, I don't want to, I don't, I want to do two things. I'm going to try to do two things here. I do not want to excuse losing to the Sixers.

Starting point is 00:07:18 even without Anthony Davis leaves the game. You're short-handed other guys. You go down that roster and you know, you still have LeBron. You still have Austin Reeves. It's a day for then Max Christie to step up. It's a day for Dorian Finney Smith to step up. Connected,

Starting point is 00:07:37 his job coming off the bench, I think. But like, okay, it's, you know, not to get super cliche, but it's next man. Sixers are missing half their roster too. Next Man Up mentality. and you're playing Tyrese Maxi, Kelly Ubre, Eric Gordon, like, you know, not exactly. Yabasua, eh?

Starting point is 00:07:58 Yeah, again, decent enough players. And your roster, what's left over, is not like light years better than theirs. But so I don't want to, I do not want to say like there's like, oh, well, you know, this stuff happens. Like this was still a very winnable game in one that the Lakers needed to win. What it shows, though, and what it reflects in terms of where the Lakers were without AD and short their third point guard, or their third guard, I should say, if you want to count LeBron and Reeves as one and two, is very revealing about the roster generally. And so I want to talk about that next. Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by Game Time.

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Starting point is 00:10:32 You're doing us a favor because, you know, good for us. So, you know, get this newsletter out the door. Anyway, again, Andy, I am not excusing a loss. I am particularly not excusing a loss where the Lakers got blown out against a really bad Sixers team, where they turned the ball over a ton, where Redick again talked about the mental focus and all these things being a problem. You lose because a team gets hot, but you're generally playing reasonably tight basketball. It's Ricky Council the Fourth's day. Like, weird stuff happens in the NBA, but the Lakers did not control the third.

Starting point is 00:11:18 things that they should be able to control, even down a bunch of guys. Again, play well, you know, execute well like good teams do even when they're missing their stars. So that's the starting pool. Outscored 4832 in the second quarter and that's when it really started just going sideways for the Lakers. And I tweeted out the second quarter was yet another reminder that the Lakers are a much different team without Anthony Davis and by different, I mean way, way worse.

Starting point is 00:11:47 I mean, they're just, Anthony Davis is the best player on this team on both sides of the ball by at this point a very notable margin. Like he's the most dependable player on this team. And we've said many times, hell, we were saying this last year. The Lakers are going to go as far as Anthony Davis can take them, which doesn't mean that they become excused, as you said, for not finding ways to win whenever. Anthony Davis isn't available, but you have to acknowledge the reality that they become a radically different team without him. And that's what I want to talk about here is that is the radical difference because we saw on Tuesday glaring in neon, glaring neon whatever exactly where the Lakers roster is deficient. It is deficient in serviceable, you know, reliable backup centers or starting caliber centers. There's shorts and bigs.

Starting point is 00:12:54 Anthony Davis is correct when he tells Sham Sharani at ESPN, the Lakers, you know, need a center. He's not wrong. You know, this was not a good night for Jackson Hayes. He was in foul trouble a lot. He played hard. Jackson Hayes always plays hard. Christian Coloco, again, kind of the thing. You like, you know, you don't want to be needing in a position that you have to rely on

Starting point is 00:13:14 Christian Coloco to play above level. That's not fair to him. They also should not be as dependent on Gabe Vincent as they are because they do not have another point guard if Vincent can't play. That is why Brony James was in this game. It wasn't for stunts. It wasn't because they wanted to get a TNT game and get them on TV or any of these other things that I've seen floating around Lakers' Twitter.

Starting point is 00:13:41 It's because Gabe Vincent was hurt. Jalen Hood-Huff. Fino is hurt. Not that he's all that great either. And the Lakers needed somebody else, as it was clearly demonstrated the night before, who could dribble. Right. And Jake Milton has been really, really tough to put out on the court. And then without Anthony Davis, too, beyond what you lose in 80s talent on both sides of the ball, and JJ talked afterwards about how defensively their shell was not existent, and the lane was wide open,

Starting point is 00:14:17 and you lose the ability to make up for the former when Anthony Davis is not there protecting the ladder. But there's also the element of offensively, you lose that hub, and there's nobody else that the Lakers can use to play inside out with other than LeBron, except the problem with that is if you're using LeBron to play inside out and you only have one other true ball handler slash facilitator in Reeves, your offense just starts becoming very difficult to make function.

Starting point is 00:14:56 Like half of the things that Redick would be looking to do or plays that he would look to call sets he'd try to make happen, you can't do them. Like you can't run that sort of offense, you know, forget through Jackson Hayes or Coloco. That's obviously not an option. But like even someone like Rui who can score in the post and has some, you know, he's clearly got utility as a scorer. That's his best skill set. But he's not a good enough passer.

Starting point is 00:15:26 And he's not even a good enough presence in the post that you're automatically going to start drawing doubles. and then you have the opportunity to kick the ball out, everything swings around. You just become incredibly limited in ways, too, that quite frankly, Yonis Valenciunis is not going to solve that problem either. If you had to run him out there for a few weeks, if knock on wood, this hopefully does not happen, Anthony Davis misses time or whatever. Like even somebody like Nikola Vucevich, who if, say you brought him in there, obviously

Starting point is 00:16:02 he'd help you offensively, but then you have to worry about everything you give back on the other end. It's just they are a fundamentally far different and worst team without AD before you even get into the other skill sets that they are missing right now. Yeah, and I think the other thing that becomes glaringly obvious is the Lakers are really short on guys who can break people down off the dribble because, you know, you look at what Maxie did in this game. And a lot of it, you know, look, I mean, I'll use Bronny as an example. example. He did the, you know, actually thought the best thing he did in this game was sort of trying to stay with, react to, get over screens, do all that stuff, you know, to try when he

Starting point is 00:16:45 was matched up with Maxi. I meant to say it worked. Maxi kind of worked him over in the first, in the first half when Bruny came in. But, you know, he was reacting. He contested the jumpers. Maxi averages 30 points, you know, whatever it is, 20-something points a game. A lot of people struggle to to stop Tyrese Maxie, particularly one-on-one to open the floor. But the Lakers don't have that. And so when Anthony Davis isn't there to sort of be that hub of an offense and help spread things around and force defenses to move, you know, the Lakers really have to, you know, be incredibly precise,

Starting point is 00:17:20 which they were not, you know, even close on Tuesday. But they also just don't have that fail safe of a guy who can get into the lane or break somebody down or come off a screen and create in isolation because LeBron really struggles with that now. It's not really his game anymore. AR sort of can do it, but like you get into some really wonky possessions when you try to set up AR just to go one-on-one to do that. And after that, there's really no one.

Starting point is 00:17:52 Especially a little bit of connect, but that's. Philly has some decent defenders that they can put on. Reeves to try to, you know, we've seen Reeves struggles with ball pressure. I mean, frankly, this whole team can, but Reeves in particular can struggle with that. And Philly has people that they can put on him to make that worse. LeBron turned the ball over eight times in this game against nine assists. I mean, he was efficient from the field, but those turnovers are, they're an absolute killer.

Starting point is 00:18:26 Like there was a sequence in the second quarter or out of a timeout. LeBron attempted a post-up, and the ball was just literally ripped from him, and the Sixers didn't end up scoring. But the next possession, LeBron almost turned the ball over again, then drove inside and got blocked. And again, he was overall efficient from the field, but you could just see, particularly on the second end of a back-to-back. And that's always going to be an issue for LeBron at this stage of his career. you could see the fatigue in the way he was playing. I think it led to, we've talked about this before, a lot of LeBron walking the ball up the court,

Starting point is 00:19:08 which if you give a defense, the opportunity is set against the offense without Anthony Davis and some of the other guys out there, you're going to be able to pressure them into a lot of, frankly, bad decisions. I, yeah, I think that's, that's absolutely, absolutely true. And it's just, you know, the, there are times in teams. And like Philadelphia, like most bad teams, is basically reduced to, you know,

Starting point is 00:19:47 a hyper athletic, you know, star caliber player in Maxi, then just a bunch of other athletes, you know, like, that's really what they are. and we see sort of this trend time and time again where teams that can fly around can jump or bouncy can put pressure like they cause the Lakers trouble because the Lakers are a lot of things, but they are not an athletic group. And so if they are, you know, the turnovers,

Starting point is 00:20:15 like you talk about LeBron with turnovers and giving up possessions and all these other things. Like I am, games like this, I leave undecided as to what they need more, another guard or a big. I think you can make rock solid arguments for either. It's why that hypothetical Kessler-Sexon trade is so enticing because then you get both. But it's not a real, I don't, until it happens, I'm just not considering a real thing. What happens if Anthony Davis misses a week?

Starting point is 00:20:55 I'm not trying to scare you, Andy. I just want to know, get your thoughts about what the Lakers might do. Let's say if Anthony Davis has to miss 10 days or something like that. We'll get to it next. This is the fourth game. He didn't miss Tuesday night's game, but this was essentially third game. Of the road trip. No, I meant, I was going to say that Anthony Davis has sort of functionally missed this season.

Starting point is 00:21:27 I think he's missed three and then now sort of three and three quarters game. or whatever it is, he's been in the lineup pretty much uninterrupted all year long. The Lakers haven't had to play multiple games consecutively without Anthony Davis. We don't know if that's going to be the case, but it's Washington on Thursday. It's New York on Saturday and then Clippers, I believe, following that again. Yep. So, you know, Washington. okay, maybe you can beat them without AD,

Starting point is 00:22:06 but we also saw what AD just did to the Wizards. So handy fellow to have a round. And then those last two games get real tricky. So like, what do you do if you're the Lakers and you know, Anthony, that AD might miss 10 days other than prey? I mean, it's a two-pronged question. Are you asking what do they do to try to stave off the 10 days? Are you asking what do they do before February 6th?

Starting point is 00:22:34 Are you asking both? All of it. Go with your heart. As far as the trade deadline goes, I would likely treat things exactly the same unless I have an indication that AD is going to miss weeks or two months. Because at that point, I'm not expending assets to try to save the Lakers. Unless it's a type of deal that, let's just say,

Starting point is 00:23:00 for example, even though it's been made clear by reports, very unlikely to happen. Shams Charani from ESPN reported that Deeran Fox's camp has made it clear to Sacramento, we'd like you to trade Fox. And unspoken with that or maybe spoken internally is he ain't going to resign. So he might as well move him while you've got value and he's under contract for one more year, extension eligible, yada, yada, yada. Right. The Lakers are reportedly not a team on his destination list.

Starting point is 00:23:34 Reportedly, the number one is San Antonio. But unless somebody like Deeran Fox comes up where, even if it doesn't help you for this season, you're setting up the Lakers future. You can't make a short-term type deal if Anthony Davis is going to miss a month, a month and a half, whatever. Short-term, it would help if everybody is available. of gave Vincent's back and everybody has to go out there with the mindset of we cannot F around. Like we have to treat every single possession like the equivalent of the bus and speed that if

Starting point is 00:24:15 it dips below 55 miles an hour, it explodes. Like you have to be that careful and you have to be that precise and you have to be treating everything with that type of importance. That's how you get through a couple weeks without AD. Yeah, I think that's a question of focus. That, is being dialed into what you are doing, being conscious. It is hard. Like every trip down the way, you know, hold that screen the exact time longer. You got to hold it a little longer. You got to, you know, all of that stuff, fight through as opposed to go under, you know,

Starting point is 00:24:44 every little piece of detail needs to be there and stay there each time. So that is, that's not easy to do. But if they're going to be an execution team and they keep calling themselves that, like they're not, meaning they're not going to overwhelm you with talent. But like when they execute, they get a game plan, execute a game plan. Instead, they win a lot of games. So that's what you need to fall back on without Anthony Davis. It's harder because you're easier to defend.

Starting point is 00:25:15 You have less talent and all these other things. And it is definitely your best player. But that's what you're left with. And then it's time for Max Christie to contribute a little bit more. It's Dorian Finney Smith. Can't just play good wing defense. he needs to give you 14 points. Like, you know, all that stuff also needs to happen.

Starting point is 00:25:33 Rui. You get Rui more shots. Yeah. Whatever it is. The other thing that you do if you are without Anthony Davis for any stretch of time is you take those stupid lake show jerseys and you throw them in the nearest body of water, tied up in like a trunk with like chains wrapped around it and all that. So it just, it has no choice but to sink.

Starting point is 00:25:59 The Lakers now are one and nine in their city connect jerseys, meaning they are 25 and 10, I believe, without them. In any of their other uniform combinations, and they have a few, they are 25 and 10 when they don't wear those stupid city connect cursed jerseys. And to top that all off, there was a guy and he posted this, and I've clicked out of it, and I apologize. But he noted that the Lakers, if you go back to their last, they've not won a game on January 28th since 2004. So a tremendous amount of dark magic at play for the Lakers.

Starting point is 00:26:44 They are not only forcing the Lakers to lose games now. Those jerseys are starting to hurt people. And they are growing more powerful. and the Lakers need to have some sort of intervention here because they cannot keep wearing these things. People are already getting hurt. If AD misses any time, we know it's going to be rough. They are a far, far better team with AD.

Starting point is 00:27:12 They are a far, far more functional team with AD. And again, hopefully we'll get some details between now and the Wizards in terms of diagnosis. There is always a chance that they realized this thing was getting out of hand. It was the second end of a back-to-back. They saw the collective energy of everyone else and said, you know what, it's not worth potentially aggravating it more under these circumstances. We'll eat the L and move forward.

Starting point is 00:27:42 Hopefully that's the case. Again, that was not JJ's vibe, but he's an intense fella. So there could be many things explaining that. Do want to mention again, we pointed out, this was a good game for Dalton Connect. And he is, it becomes a different deal for the Lakers. And also Dalton Connect made the Rising Stars team. So he will be part of All-Star Weekend.

Starting point is 00:28:06 So that that's cool for him. But the last five games, he has shot from behind the arc, 62% against Philadelphia missed all of his threes against Charlotte, but then 43% against Golden State, 75% against Boston, and 50% against Washington. And Washington was smaller sample size. But the last four games, he played about 15 minutes or more. And he also, too, not even counting the garbage time because he had 24 points tonight,

Starting point is 00:28:40 but he was playing in the fourth quarter in garbage time. Side note, I also thought it was very weird. that JJ Redick to open the fourth didn't have Connect on the floor while they were trying to get back into this game. Abram was still playing. So it's not like they had conceded. I thought it was odd that JJ wasn't playing Dalton Connect. One of the only guys on the team tonight that was able to make shots at all and you're trying to make up a deficit in a hurry. I thought that was a weird decision. I mean, in the grand scheme of thing, No, it doesn't matter, but it's still, yeah, it's strange. I think, I feel like the staff kind of checked out on this game.

Starting point is 00:29:23 I think they were annoyed. I was wondering why LeBron Reeves were still in the game, you know, six, seven minutes left. I mean, there were a few things going on where I was like, I don't feel. I think they're just angry and kind of checked out. I was honestly wondering if LeBron was just trying to get a triple double. Maybe. They clearly stopped, you know, calling and running plays and stuff like that. There's, you know, so that part of it.

Starting point is 00:29:48 Also, it is Lucas at KBS Lake Show 24 who put that out there. This was their 11th straight loss on January 28th. So I just want to make sure we acknowledge the sender of the tweet. So again, you got to plan these things better. You can't have the dark magic of January 28th combined with the dark magic of these uniforms and expect a good thing to happen. Anthony Davis got hurt. So Lockdown-on Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 27,000 subscribers. We will see everyone tomorrow and get you ready for the game and the other game

Starting point is 00:30:29 coming up this weekend. Everyone, have a good day.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Lakers Lose 118-104 to 76ers, Anthony Davis Suffers Abdominal Injury

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