Anthony Davis’ voice was low but stern while criticizing his play.
His play has been at such a high level in leading the Lakers to a three-game winning streak, that even when Davis produced a double-double against the New York Knicks, it bothered him that he didn’t do more.
Davis’ 17 points and 16 rebounds were not enough to prevent the Lakers from losing to the Knicks 112-108 Sunday night at Crypto.com Arena.
“My play. I played terrible,” Davis said. “Couldn’t find my shot: free throws, layups, everything. The guys did their job. I didn’t do my job tonight.”
Davis missed 10 of 18 shots. He missed four of five free throws. He was a plus-nine in the plus-minus category, yet Davis still took the blame for the Lakers’ loss.
Davis said, “everything,” when asked what he could have done better.
“I think I had a good presence defensively,” he said. “Offensively, I wasn’t there. Missing free throws, layups, the handle, the shots. Everything offensively. Like I said, the guys played well tonight. Did their jobs. Dennis [Schroder], DLo [D’Angelo Russell], Austin [Reaves], Wenyen [Gabriel], Rui [Hachimura], all those guys did more than enough to help win the game. I didn’t do my part.”
Schroder, for one, was not going to let Davis take all the blame. In Schroder’s mind, there was enough blame to go around.
“I mean, it’s everybody, it’s everybody in this locker room. When I came in I had two quick turnovers,” Schroder said. “It’s on everybody. When we lose, we lose as a team. When we win, we win as a team.
“But, AD, he try to be great at all times and he’s been 90% of the time great for us. That he missed free throws there, that happens, We’re all humans and we can’t control if a shot goes in. But everything else, defensively, he did a great job still. Even in the second half on Julius Randle. So, he can’t put it on himself.”
Beasley in shooting slump
It was another tough night for shooting guard Malik Beasley.
He made his first shot, which looked to be a sign of things to come.
Instead, Beasley finished his night against the Knicks four-for-12 shooting from the field, two for eight from three-point range, for 10 points.
In his last three games, Beasley has shot 25% from the field and 21% from three-point range.
“I encourage him to continue to shoot,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said. “I don’t care if he was 0 for 20. He’s in this league because he can put the ball in the basket. And sometimes you go through different spells. Sometimes you have bad moments. All my ATOs [after-timeout plays] don’t work. All my coverages don’t work. But we continue to fight and stack and try to do what we do and continuously keep at it so we can get better and have things turn for the good.”
On the road
After the loss to the Knicks, the Lakers fell out of position for the play-in game and into the 11th spot in the Western Conference. They are tied with the Utah Jazz (ninth) and Oklahoma City (10th), each of them at 33-35; the Jazz and the Thunder own the tiebreaker over the Lakers.
But the Lakers also have the same record as the 12th-seeded Pelicans, whom Los Angeles will face Tuesday night in New Orleans. The Lakers also play at the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night.
“Every game shouldn’t take a Western Conference team to be motivated,” Schroder said. “I think every game we got to be motivated and be ready. But that one, the next two, we got to get those.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
