"The bubble version of the thick eyebrow brother is back!"
After witnessing anthony Davis's strong performance, the US media have sighed.
On February 3, Beijing time, the Lakers sat at home to win 99-94 against the Blazers finally ended a 3-game losing streak, Davis played 37 minutes and shot 19 of 10, 14 free throws and 10 of 10, 30 points plus 15 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 blocks, offensive and defensive performances at both ends, leading the Lakers to a long-lost victory.
It is true that the Lakers did not have LeBron James to win, which is indeed true, and the Lakers' dismal winning percentage when James was away is evidence. But Davis wasn't going to lie flat and accept questions about his ability to lead the team. In a battle with the Blazers, in the case of a disadvantage to Nurkic in tonnage, Davis responded with a tough performance.
For the Lakers, Davis's return to peak form is undoubtedly the biggest positive for them to turn the situation around in the closing stage.
In the 2020 playoffs, Davis' performance inside the Orlando bubble was dominant. In the Lakers' championship-winning journey, Davis's independent offensive 100-round shot was 10.7 times, the proportion of independent offense reached 47.6%, the effective shooting rate was as high as 50.9%, and the true shooting rate was as high as 66.5%, which was far beyond his past level, and such a performance directly sent him to the top star camp.
Because in the past, what restricted Davis from entering the top player camp was his ability to create offensive opportunities on his own. He has fewer autonomous offenses and is less efficient. The data shows that during the same period of Davis's career, 45 players played at least 5,000 rounds and the ball was used at least 25%, and Davis ranked 42nd in effective shooting rate of more than 2 seconds. Only 37.2 percent of Davis' career regular season shots were self-directed offense, while the average percentage of players with 27.5 percent of the ball's possessions in the same period was 66.6 percent.
Judging from Davis' performance in the 2020 playoffs, he has broken through the bottleneck and the proportion and efficiency of his own offense have been greatly improved. But last season and this season, Davis' attendance plummeted due to injuries, and he didn't dominate the game as well as he did in the 2020 playoffs. As if Davis had left his dominance within orlando's bubble, Davis's performance was disappointing.
But since his comeback from a knee injury, Davis has suddenly regained his peak performance in the 2020 playoffs. In his last three games, he has averaged 29.3 points plus 10.7 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game, shooting 57.6 percent from the field. It can be seen that more than a month of rest and weight loss has helped Davis very much.
The most obvious change for Davis was the regaining of his ability to move from the mid-range shooting and defensive end. Davis has shot more than 40 percent from the field in the last three games, and before he was injured, Davis was one of the lowest-performing mid-range shooters in the league. Especially in today's game with the Blazers, he hit 5 shots, whether it is a strong shot with the ball or a catch shot, the crosshairs are very high, and davis killed the game with 2 shots at the key moment.
Defensively, Davis, after losing weight, really couldn't hold Back Nurkic's toughness under the basket and was eaten by Nurkic several times. But in turn, Davis's flexibility after losing weight has increased a lot, he gave Nurkic 1 head-on hat, which can also keep up with the strong surprises of the Blazers defenders, and gave the Blazers defenders 2 big hats, repeatedly interfering with the breakthrough near the opponent's basket. In addition, after losing weight, Davis used his speed several times on the offensive end to force Nurkic.
At this stage, the Lakers are in a very tangled situation. In a battle with the Blazers, you can clearly feel the entanglement of Lakers coach Vogel. Due to the Lakers' lineup having birth defects, Vogel is very entangled between the use of large lineups and small lineups. Using a large lineup, Wei Shao suddenly did not go in and made many mistakes, and also missed a lot of three points. Using a small lineup, the Lakers still can't defend the outside line, and also give opponents a lot of opportunities to grab offensive rebounds for the second offense. So Vogel started with Dwight Howard in the second half, but quickly replaced him again.
Davis can't solve the Lakers' entanglement on his own, but he is the only player who can alleviate the Lakers' entanglement between "big and small" at this stage. Davis regained the performance of the championship season, and the Lakers' fault tolerance rate improved, which is the key to their ability to win despite 16 turnovers to give their opponents more than 20 points, conceded 18 rebounds and were played by their opponents for a second offense. In the decisive moment, whether James is there or not, Davis playing center is the lakers' strongest move.
Originally, the Lakers hoped that the Big Three could use the easy schedule at the beginning of the season to slowly run in, but they did not expect that Davis' performance did not meet expectations and was injured, James also missed a large number of games due to injury, and the Lakers' big three teams have only played 16 games this season, and the problem of Westbrook compatibility cannot be solved at all.
Now that the Lakers have 30 games left, the good news is that Davis has finally recovered his health and returned to his peak form, but the Lakers still have not solved the compatibility problem of Westbrook, and they are also facing the problem of James's knee injury.
Next, the Lakers can only pray that James's knee injury is not a big problem, and the medical team can help James's knee swelling as soon as possible. Only when James returns healthy and merges with the strongest version of Davis, the Lakers have the opportunity and hope to solve the compatibility problem of Westbrook, and the Lakers can first strive to rush out of the playoffs and enter the playoffs.