LOS ANGELES — The Lakers’ roller coaster of a season, and the emotions that come with it, continued in their 128-121 home loss to the Golden State Warriors Saturday at Crypto.com Arena.
There were the highs of LeBron James scoring a season-high-tying 40 points to keep the Lakers in the game.
But there were the lows of Anthony Davis leaving the game early because of an eye contusion, with Davis being limited to 12 first-quarter minutes after getting hit in the left eye by Trayce Jackson-Davis on a layup late in the first quarter.
And then there was the weirdness of the final two minutes – which took nearly 22 minutes of real-time to finish because of reviews and malfunctioning shot clocks.
Davis’ exit from Saturday’s game was immediately felt.
Golden State, led by Stephen Curry (31 points, six rebounds and five assists), Jonathan Kuminga (23 points, four assists) and Klay Thompson (26 points off the bench), got into the paint with ease once Davis was no longer on the floor.
“When you lose AD, it just hurts the balance of our team,” James said. “Our coaching staff has been pretty good with having a certain rotation and how we work in our rotations, so now that changes a lot of things. Golden State, you tip your hat to them. They played exceptionally well. It’s just tough when you have a big component to the puzzle and then you don’t have it.”
The Warriors scored just four points in the paint in the 12 first-quarter minutes that Davis played.
They scored 58 in the final three quarters, feasting off direct drives to the basket or passes into the paint against the Lakers’ smaller lineups.
Coach Darvin Ham said that Davis wasn’t able to see out of his left eye after getting hit and suffered from blurred vision.
“[The doctors] were working on him from the time he left the floor and went back to the training room through halftime,” Ham said. “So the biggest thing is just making sure he’s OK and we’ll get an update on him pretty soon.”
Already without their bigger frontcourt players in Jarred Vanderbilt, Christian Wood and two-way big man Colin Castleton, in addition to Gabe Vincent and Cam Reddish being sidelined, the Lakers used Jaxson Hayes as the lone big man in the rotation for the final three quarters.
Davis, who was officially ruled out in the third quarter, has only missed four games this season and played 2,264 minutes entering Saturday, the sixth-most in the league.
“We’re not accustomed to playing without him,” D’Angelo Russell said. “That’s unfamiliar for us. But it’s no excuse. Jaxson played his ass off. Everybody else that came in stepped up to the plate. But that’s a tough team, well-coached team. So it’s not going to be easy.”
The Lakers, who trailed 102-93 at the end of the third and by as many as 12 (113-101) midway through the fourth, made a comeback attempt led by James scoring six consecutive points to trim the deficit to 113-107. Russell, who had a 23-point, 13-assist double-double, had nine points and six assists in the second half.
James appeared to cut the deficit to 124-120 and score a season-high 41 points, on a fadeaway corner 3-pointer over Curry with 2:07 left. But the officials took the 3 away, ruling that James stepped out of bounds while reviewing an out-of-bounds challenge that the Lakers called 17 seconds later.
A postgame pool report stated: “James’ left foot is out of bounds as he begins to shoot. Yes, it is reviewable at that time. The rule is Rule 13, Section II(f)(3): Whether the shooter committed a boundary line violation, the replay center official will only look at the position of the player’s feet at the moment they touch the floor immediately prior to the release of the shot. This can be applied during other replay triggers as well.”
The Lakers didn’t cut the deficit any closer than seven for the remainder of the game.
“It was good momentum, obviously,” James said. “I’ve never seen that be called before like that in that particular time. That was kind of weird. But, yeah, it took some momentum away from us.”
On a Warriors possession between the 11:07 and 10:38 marks in the fourth, there was also an incidental resetting of the shot clock from 10 seconds to 24 seconds at the 10:53 mark in the fourth, giving Golden State extra time to get a shot off – a Jackson-Davis driving hook shot that gave the Warriors a 104-96 lead.
The pool report stated: “The shot clock malfunctioned during live play at that time and that is not a reviewable matter.”
The final two minutes of play lasted over 22 minutes because of multiple reviews and clock malfunctions.
The Lakers’ longtime public address announcer Lawrence Tanter announced the final shot clock for the final 1:35 of gametime.
“It messes with the rhythm, but at the end of the day, you want to get it right,” James said. “So, it’s unfortunate what happened. But you want to try to get it right, obviously. The referees, they have a job to do and they have to do it the best they can. So, all good.
