Los Angeles Lakers star big man Anthony Davis opened the Western Conference Semifinals against the Golden State Warriors with an epic performance. AD dropped 30 points with 23 rebounds, five assists and four blocks as Los Angeles stole Game 1 in San Francisco.
The expectation was that Davis’ brilliant play would continue into Game 2 Thursday evening. What ended up happening was far from that.
The embattled All-Star put up a disastrous performance with 11 points and seven rebounds in 33 minutes of action. Davis had as many turnovers (four) as assists and nearly as many giveaways as made field goals in shooting 5-of-11 from the field.
Ultimately, the Lakers finished minus-22 with Davis on the court as they were blown out by the score of 127-100.
There have certainly been some hot takes regarding Davis’ performance from Thursday night. That includes always boisterous media personality Stephen A. Smith. He put Davis on absolute blast on ESPN’s First Take. It was not subtle.
“Anthony Davis was straight garbage last night. Let’s just call it what it is. Straight garbage. I mean, he was so bad sanitation workers may not want to go near him and that’s their job to take out garbage. That’s how bad he was. The fact of the matter is if Anthony Davis was ready like LeBron James, they would have had a legitimate shot to go up 2-0 in this series, but he wasn’t ready to play. The effort you put forth was fricken inexcusable. It was embarrassing.”
Stephen A. Smith on Anthony Davis’ Game 2 performance
Golden State switched things up a bit with its starting lineup for Game 2. Starting center Kevon Looney fell ill before the matchup.
Veteran forward JaMychal Green was inserted into the starting lineup with Draymond Green playing small-ball five. For the most part, Draymond was the primary defender on AD when he was on the court. That obviously had an impact on what Davis did on offense throughout the game.
Related: Top takeaways from Warriors’ blowout Game 2 win over Lakers
Los Angeles Lakers need more consistency from Anthony Davis
“Obviously, I can be better. Can’t have a night like I had tonight and expect us to win. But we’ll look at the film for the next couple of days and be ready for Saturday. Make some adjustments and try to get a win at home,” Anthony Davis after disappearing act in Game 2.
The good news for AD and the Lakers is that they did steal home-court advantage from the defending champs by winning Game 1 on Tuesday night.
The bad news? Davis has been too inconsistent throughout the postseason. He touched on that at times following the Game 2 loss, and he’s not wrong.
Davis has put up 16 points or fewer in four of the Lakers’ eight playoff games this season. He’s averaging 28.5 points in the other four.
The latter will have to be the name of the game for AD starting Saturday evening in Los Angeles if the Lakers are to maintain home-court advantage in this series. He knows that all too well.
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