The Los Angeles Lakers inserted Max Christie into the starting lineup in order to give them a primary on-ball defender on the perimeter. Regardless of how great Anthony Davis is at cleaning up his teammates’ mistakes, the Lakers sorely needed an improvement on the perimeter in order to take their defense to a respectable level.
Now with Davis out due to an abdominal strain, the Lakers have lost the heart of their defense. It wasn’t an issue against the Washington Wizards as the Lakers dominated them, but going forward it will be a much more difficult task to contain teams without one of the best defensive bigs in the league.
Everyone will need to step up on that end of the court as there is simply no replacing what Davis brings to the table. And Christie is putting the pressure on himself and the rest of the Lakers’ perimeter defenders to really step up in Davis’ absence, as seen on Spectrum SportsNet:
“We gotta be more solid on the ball, for sure. We still got guys back there that are tall, long and can really block shots, but AD is obviously one of the best in the league at that. So for us, we gotta step up our game on the defensive end as guards, keeping the ball in front and being physical and containing the ball. With him out, obviously it’s tough for us as a team, but the world is gonna go on so we gotta kind of adjust as a team and continue winning games.”
When there is someone like Davis on the back end, it can allow for the perimeter defenders to take more chances as Davis is there to clean up the mistakes. Jaxson Hayes and Christian Koloko are capable of providing some rim protection, as Christie pointed out, but they aren’t Davis.
As such, it is even more important for the likes of Christie, Dorian Finney-Smith, Austin Reaves and Gabe Vincent to keep the ball in front of them and not give the opposition clean lanes to the basket. Like Christie said, losing Davis is tough, but they have to adjust and figure out how to win games without their best player.
JJ Redick hopeful Anthony Davis will return for Lakers next week
The good news in terms of this injury to Anthony Davis is that his abdominal muscle strain isn’t believed to be too serious.
The big man will be re-evaluated in a week and head coach JJ Redick is hopeful the Lakers will have their superstar back on the court next week as they can ill-afford to be without him for an extended period.
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