Los Angeles Lakers coach Darvin Ham dismissed Anthony Davis‘ negative postgame comment about his coaching as a result of their frustrations following their heartbreaking 101-99 loss in Game 2.
“Sometimes the plays don’t turn out the way you think they should,” Ham told reporters when asked about Davis’ postgame comments. “Frustrations set in a little bit. But I don’t think it’s [because] us not being organized.
We, the [Lakers] coaching staff, pride ourselves on being highly efficient and organized. I just thought he was just being frustrated. It was an emotional game the way it ended. We agree to disagree on that one.”
The Lakers lost a 20-point lead in the second half as they departed from what worked in the first half — exploiting the Anthony Davis-Nikola Jokic mismatch on ball screens.
Davis dominated Jokic in the post in the first half with 24 points on 11 of 12 shooting from the field. But in the fourth quarter, Davis only had one attempt, which he missed, across 10 minutes of playing time.
“We have stretches where we just don’t know what we’re doing on both ends of the floor,” Davis told reporters after the loss. “Those are the ones that cost us. So we got two days to get it right right and come ready to win Game 3.”
Robert Horry Attributes Loss to LeBron James’ One-on-One Play
Seven-time NBA champion and former Lakers player Robert Horry shared Davis’ sentiments and pinpointed the momentum-killer that hastened their collapse.
“LeBron [James] is 39 [years old]. Yes, he’s one of the best players ever to play this game [but] he had no advantage [Monday night]. That [isolation play] at the top got them in trouble. You know why? Denver was able to rest on the defensive end. They sat there and waited on LeBron to make his move and then they went in — I love LeBron to death — but to me, that’s not winning basketball.”
James scored 12 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter. The Lakers only had two assists in the decisive final quarter courtesy of James as the ball stopped moving.
“[Davis] was cooking but then you go away from that and to me, you got to understand it ain’t about ‘Me’,” Horry said. “It’s about ‘We’ in the playoffs and you got to go to the advantage and [Davis] in the second half — who had the advantage throughout the first half — we totally forgot about him.”
D’Angelo Russell Criticizes Officiating
The loss was a bitter pill to swallow especially for D’Angelo Russell, who scored 23 points spiked by a playoff career-high seven 3-pointers.
The Lakers guard lambasted the game officials for overturning a foul called on Michael Porter Jr. late in the third quarter for smacking the Lakers guard on the face on his way for a layup.
After review, the officials led by crew chief Scott Foster rescinded the foul as they deemed Porter’s contact as “marginal” at best.
“That’s foul,” Russell posted on X, formerly Twitter, shortly after the game. “We all saw it on national television.”
James also did not hide his dissatisfaction about the overturned call, which came back to haunt the Lakers in the end as they lost by only two points.
“I don’t understand what’s happening in the replay center, to be honest,” James informed reporters during his postgame press conference. “… D-Lo clearly gets hit in the face on a drive. Why do we have a replay center if it’s going to go like that? It doesn’t make sense to me. It bothers me. … And then I just saw what happened with the Sixers-Knicks game too. Like, what are we doing? … It’s silly.”
