© Orange County Register Lakers forward Anthony Davis tries to drive as Minnesota Timberwolves forward Karl-Anthony Towns defends during the first half of a playoff game Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena. The Lakers survived a heartbreaking 108-102 victory and will face the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the seven-game playoffs starting Sunday in Memphis. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)One look at the basketball court and you know that Anthony Davis was born to play and play well. The arms seem to be stretched towards the sky. His legs carry him with the speed and certainty of a very small man. It can defeat internal and external opponents.
One problem is that when you're over 6-foot-10 and 250 pounds, like Davis, your body tends to collapse from the stress of the game, the constant running and jumping, twisting and turning, and constant pressure from opponents. . How big and strong.
When he's healthy, all is well in Lakers' world.
If he doesn't, well, it will be a struggle.
The Lakers have been on the court in their last 13 games, including Tuesday's playoff win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, which put Davis in a first-round matchup with the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday afternoon. It is the longest streak of this season.
He also played 30 of his last 32 games and lost the penultimate game twice.
After starting the season with 10 losses in the first 12 games, the Lakers won 10 of 12 games and made the playoffs. In March and April, he averaged 26.2 points and 12.5 rebounds as the Lakers went 14-6.
But it has a price.
As Davis sits in the locker room, resting and recovering after each game, he sticks his foot in a large ice bucket to better ease the pain from what the Lakers officially describe as a "right foot injury." LeBron James puts his injured leg in the same bucket of ice in the next locker room.
"We want to rest, we want our bodies to heal and recover," Davis said after the Lakers' 108-102 overtime win over the Timberwolves on Tuesday. "I mean, we've been playing game after game since the all-star break. So let's take four days to recover, let our bodies heal, mentally prepare for Memphis and it's good. A new kind of Sunday.
The Lakers played eight games in 14 days, winning all but one. Despite the occasional miscue, including the Timberwolves outscoring by 15 points in the third quarter, their relationship was palpable. But in recent games they have sold well when it matters most.
Even after Davis was fouled on Mike Conley's 3-point attempt, Conley sank a 3-pointer with 0.1 seconds left in the fourth quarter to send the game into OT at 98-98. James later called it a "brain fart" in a TV interview.
James joked that Davis' foul and Conley's free throw set up teammate Dennis Schroder's game-winner with 1.4 seconds left on James' assist. A laughing Davis, standing nearby, offered a heartfelt apology to Schroeder and James in front of the TNT cameras.
Lakers coach Darwin Hamm said the Lakers called a timeout before the five-minute overtime and quickly fell behind. In a 10-4 OT win over the Timberwolves, Minnesota went 2-8 and forced three turnovers.
I think the most important thing for us is our resilience, fighting, being in some games and owning it at the same time, guys don't get angry, guys don't fight, get angry, keep that positive energy and show it. up. We won," Davis said.
"We're going to win those games," he said after Tuesday's game. "Everybody plays like that, being in the moment, next game mentality. It's fun. We should have fun. The guys are having fun, they're enjoying the season and it shows on the field. So everybody's playing with chemistry,". sure, but we don't have all the training time we'd like because it's burning from the stars. We're looking at ways to win basketball games and now we have four days off and we have a chance to practice and we're going to really lock in and prepare and be more aggressive.
Can you continue sending transmitters? The seventh-seeded Lakers upset the second-seeded Grizzlies to win a first-round playoff game and become the first team to advance to the second round, over Golden State-Sacramento winners. series?
Some, but not all, of the burden falls on Davis' shoulders. He averaged 25.9 points, second only to James' 28.9, and also grabbed a team-leading 12.5 rebounds in 56 regular season games. He had 24 points and 15 rebounds in 43 minutes against Minnesota on Tuesday.
Hamm said Tuesday night that the Lakers could still do more to free Davis, making him a bigger and more valuable player. Davis had 38 points in the first three games of a four-game hitting streak earlier this month, followed by 40 points in consecutive games.
But he finished the regular season with 21 points against the Utah Jazz, 17 against the Clippers, 14 against the Phoenix Suns and 16 against the Jazz last Sunday. Despite what Hamm called a "thinness," he bounced back with a productive game against Minnesota.Staying healthy and grounded is just the first step.
"We have to be able to move him and it's up to me and my staff because he's going to be double-teamed individually," Hamm said. "So try to get involved in more pick-and-rolls, more secondary shooting action, move to different spots on the floor. Not a lot on the sideline. Maybe more in between.
"There's a lot we can do in our zone where we try to make the game a little bit easier and try to force the defense into the center. I have to go back to film, early on in every corner and up, on the handle, they were double-teaming when the adjustment was in the air.
We have to do our due diligence to see how we can best serve our players.