LeBron James was sitting at his locker after a wild-card Lakers game this season when the prospect of his team surviving without Anthony Davis came up.
James, evolving as quickly as he has all season, stated the obvious.
“No chance.”
So even though James was doing his best, working to wear down the court and get through the Golden State Warriors’ defense, the most important parts of the game were taking place in the locker room.
Late in the first quarter, Davis drove to the basket and scored on rookie Trayce Jackson-Davis, who punched the ball and caught Davis in the left eye.
Davis had trouble keeping his injured eye open and after the first quarter, he went to the locker room and never returned.
James was right: The six-point lead the Lakers built with Davis quickly became a deficit before ultimately turning into a 128-121 loss. James scored 40 points on 15-of-23 shooting with eight rebounds and nine assists, but it wasn’t enough.
Minus a miracle win in Boston without Davis or James, the Lakers lost by a total of 64 points in the three games Davis missed this season.
Although the problems without their defensive anchor were evident, how the fourth quarter unfolded became a story in itself.
Three points were taken off the board during a Lakers challenge, allowing replay officials to go back and see that a corner three made by James didn’t count because it was out of bounds.
That stop was one of a handful of fourth-quarter clock glitches that began when the Warriors were given four extra seconds on one possession when the shot clock mysteriously reset to 24 after 14 seconds expired .
Then, after the Lakers won an out-of-bounds challenge, timing officials struggled to get the game restarted — more than 15 minutes of real time expiring before the game could resume.
After a save, James slammed the ball in frustration. After another, he threw it towards the scoreboard.
Eventually, play resumed with the time on the shot clock not matching the actual time – with the Lakers turning the ball over before the Warriors sealed the game with a dunk.
Stephen Curry scored 31, Klay Thompson scored 26 and Draymond Green dished out 13 assists.
The Lakers, after losing a big game in Sacramento that could have helped them climb back up the standings, hosted the 10th-ranked Warriors in a game that could play a major role in keeping them off the road in the matchup go. in the tournament if they fail to move up from ninth place.
“Obviously,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said before the game, “everybody knows about it.”
But they struggled defensively early on, with James and the team failing to contest open searches for Jonathan Kuminga and Andrew Wiggins.
Late in the game, without help from the back line, Curry and Green slipped behind a selling defense to keep the Warriors off the three-point line.
This is the Lakers’ second consecutive defeat.
