A LONG WAY TO GO
Davis shows plenty of rust in his return as Lakers lose to Mavericks
As the buzzer sounded above him, Anthony Davis shuffled off to the baseline, kicking the display screen like he had already lost.
LeBron James, clad in street clothes, received him as Davis shook his head and looked up at the display board. There were still 24 minutes to play, but the 28-year-old All-Star’s night was done. His expression was glum, as if he had just been the last cut from the squad.
It had been an up-and-down 17 minutes preceding that moment, and Davis’ emotions seemed to rise and fall with his game. Warming up in the lay-up line, his giddiness shone thought, and the playful jawing with the Mavericks bench drew grins from both teams.
But there’s a long way to go, as Davis showed in a rusty 2-for-10 comeback
after his two-month, 30game injury layoff. And there’s plenty of work to do for the Lakers, who were blitzed by the Mavericks and their multi-faceted young star Luka Doncic, 115-110. They’ll have another crack at Dallas on Saturday, but Davis’ mere presence clearly won’t make it simple to win.
“Any time you integrate a player of that caliber,” coach Frank Vogel said, “there’s gonna be an adjustment period.”
They had their chances, thanks to efforts like the one given by Dennis Schröder, who fouled out with 18.3 seconds left having emptied his clip: 25 points and 13 assists. But the Lakers missed six shots in the last two-anda-half minutes of the game when they were already behind, and could not catch up when they fouled out of desperation.
Kentavious CaldwellPope had a season-best 29 points, including six 3-pointers. But the games’ best player was Doncic, the gear-shifting, sleek-passing Slovenian who racked up 30 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists.
During one second-quarter stretch, Doncic helped engineer a run when the Mavericks dunked three straight times, despite sharing the floor with Davis and Andre Drummond, the Lakers’ best two rim protectors.
The result sets up a season series rubber match for Saturday afternoon, when the Lakers could have the benefit of more minutes from Davis, and the Mavericks could have the disadvantage of no Kristaps Porzingis (19 points). The Latvian twisted his ankle in the third quarter and did not return.
It took Davis six tries to hit his first shot, a higharcing jumper from near the free throw line. He shook his head afterward, as if to say: about time. But all in all, his conditioning held up better than he thought.
“My wind felt better than I expected,” he said. “I got good looks; I missed. That comes with game reps. But I felt good out there.”
Davis had more consistent success on defense, where he blocked the jump-shot of 7-foot-3 Kristaps Porzingis, and in a subsequent possession smothered Doncic to force a late shot. But overall the Lakers couldn’t figure out how to take advantage of their returned star — who has been laid up with a right calf injury — as Dallas outscored them by 11 in his minutes.
The biggest upset of the evening was Davis pressing his own coach to stay out on the floor. While Vogel had outlined a 15-minute restriction, Davis checked back in with four minutes to go in the second quarter after he had already played 13 _ with a mischievous look plastered on his face.
He later explained that the recommended minutes was a range between 15 and 20.
But that second half was hard, as he was stuck on the bench in a gray hoodie. Patience will have to be a virtue in the coming weeks, as the Lakers try to win to keep out of the playin slot at No. 7 in the West, but be responsible with Davis’ minutes.
“We know at the end of the day, when everybody’s healthy, we’re a tough team to beat,” he said. “But we still want to make sure we’re in charge of our own destiny.”
In the third quarter, the Lakers looked as if they might not need Davis to win. They wasted less than two minutes erasing the 11-point halftime gap, as Schröder scored 14 points in the third quarter alone. Vogel called it “arguably his best game as a Laker.”
One huge gap was on the free throw line: The Mavericks took 36 to the Lakers’ 17, and besides Schröder, Kyle Kuzma, Montrezl Harrell and Drummond were all in foul trouble.