In the last game, the Lakers, who had just returned to Davis, won on the road against the strong opponents, the Nets, and the morale of the team was high. But before the game began, James was reported to be on the daily watch list because of a sore left knee injury and would not attend the game. Therefore, this battle will be a big test for Davis and Westbrook.
In the first quarter of the game, Davis and Embiid fought on the inside, and although the former performed better, the 76ers projected more accurately as a team, establishing a double-digit lead in the first quarter. In the second quarter, the Lakers improved slightly, temporarily trailing by 6 points at the end of the half. Easy to fight again, the Lakers can no longer limit the opponent's offense after a half-quarter of the tight point difference, and the point difference is gradually stretched to 20 points. In the final quarter of the game, although the Lakers were still trying to chase points, they were ultimately unable to return to the sky and lost to their opponents 87:105.
Although this campaign is only the second game of Davis' comeback, he has played an extremely outstanding performance, becoming one of the few highlights in the Lakers' fiasco game. Davis played 34 minutes, shooting 14 of 21 from the field without hitting three-pointers, and had a game-high 31 points, 12 rebounds, 2 steals and 4 blocks. Despite being in such a hot state, the Lakers lost again, and Davis was no doubt once again ridiculed by fans as the "owner of the empty cut group".
The match between Davis and Embiid in this game became the biggest attraction of the game, and from the perspective of the whole game, Davis was undoubtedly the better side. On the offensive end, Davis scored from the inside through speed and violent dunks in a row, and in addition to scoring from the inside, Davis repeatedly hit mid-range shots under Embiid's defense, and repeatedly won like a defender in the fast attack. In short, Embiid was unable to restrain the full-fledged Davis, allowing him to easily cut 31 points.
On the defensive end, the presence of Davis makes Embiid very uncomfortable, although Embiid has a comprehensive data of 26 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists, but his offensive efficiency is relatively low, only 9 of 20 shots in the whole game, including 5 of 5 three-pointers, and 4 turnovers, which has a lot to do with Davis's defense. One turn in this game is a great reflection of Davis' suppression of Embiid in this campaign. At the end of the third quarter of the campaign, Davis first completed the dunk with Embiid, and then gave the latter a big hat in the next defense, showing great dominance.
But apart from Davis, the Lakers, who lack james, did not have much of a bright spot, and only Westbrook and Munch scored in double figures except for Davis. Among them, one of the big three, Wei Shao, played 34 minutes in this campaign, 2 of 15 three-pointers on 9 three-pointers and got 20 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists, although he became the Lakers' most accurate three-point shooter in this campaign, but he did not show the appearance of a star at all, and only opened the scoring mode when the Lakers were 20 points behind, and there were as many as 6 mistakes in the whole game.
Munch, who has been in hot form this season, has been extremely sluggish in this game, scoring only 11 points on 3-of-13 shooting and only 1-of-6 three-point shooting. In addition to these three people, the Lakers in this game have no one to score double-figures, relying only on Davis alone to support themselves. The Lakers shot only 40.9 percent of the shots in the whole team, only 6 of the 29 three-point shots, and the shooting rate was only a terrible 20.7 percent, and they were beaten by the 76ers at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends, and they were almost always in a state of backwardness.
After James missed the game, the Lakers had no desire to win the game, and it did not look like a team aiming to attack the championship. Lack of James's role in both offensive and defensive ends, the Lakers are extremely uncomfortable in this campaign, and the lack of James's tandem at the offensive end, the Lakers in this campaign in addition to Davis's singles, other players are like scattered sand, the whole team only has 19 assists in the whole game, while the opponent 76ers have 30 assists in the whole game. On the defensive end, although Davis's defensive performance in this campaign is very good, after all, it is difficult to stand alone, and even if he tries hard, he is only powerless.
In fact, since James joined the Lakers, the Performance of the Lakers after the lack of him in this game is only a microcosm, and they seem to have a serious "James dependence". After this game, according to statistics, since James joined the Lakers in the 2018-19 season, the Lakers' total record when James played was 127 wins and 76 losses, a win rate of 62.6%, while when James was absent, the Lakers' total record was 28 wins and 43 losses, with a win rate of only 39.4%. As can be seen from such statistics, the Lakers seem to have a hard time finding a way to win without James.
Last season, in the nearly two months of James' absence due to a high ankle sprain, the Lakers' state was very dismal, and the team's record fell from the top four in the West to hovering on the edge of the playoffs, and finally needed to reach the playoffs through the form of playoffs. And this season, although the Lakers have very strong players such as Westbrook, Anthony and Munch, they still can't get rid of their dependence on James, and in the games that James missed this season, the Lakers are still difficult to win the game.
According to statistics, in the current game this season, when James came on, the Lakers' record was 19 wins and 17 losses, and when James was absent, the Lakers' record was only 5 wins and 8 losses, which was enough to prove that the Lakers were really difficult to move after the lack of James, and this also made Davis hang up the name of "empty cut group leader" again. Before joining the Lakers, Davis, who was in the Pelicans, although he could play excellent data for many years, it was difficult for him to lead the team to achieve better results, and many times it became an empty cut.
In the first season after joining the Lakers, Davis and James teamed up to win the championship, but in the last season, when James missed the game Davis led the team alone, the Lakers could not achieve the results they deserved, which made Davis repeatedly question the ability to lead the team alone, and this season is still the case. This is a serious problem for the Lakers, and if the problem of the team not being able to win in James' absence cannot be solved, then the Lakers will have a hard time storming the championship this season.