The Los Angeles Lakers mustered up a huge win on Wednesday night against the Washington Wizards. This was pretty much a wire-to-wire victory for LA, except that their opponents gave them a proper scare in the dying moments of the game.
So much so, that head coach Darvin Ham had to bring back his starters with 17 seconds remaining in order to avoid what would have been a catastrophic disaster.
Anthony Davis Calls Out Los Angeles Lakers Teammates
Anthony Davis had a monster game in this one, finishing with a 35-point, 18-rebound double-double to lead LA to a hard-fought 125-120 victory in Washington.
Davis, along with the rest of the team’s starters, were pulled out from the game with a little over a minute remaining and the Lakers up 13 points. It turned out to be a near-fatal mistake by coach Ham, who watched his bench players allow the Wizards to come back to life.
Ham was left with no other choice but to bring Davis, LeBron James, Austin Reaves, and Rui Hachimura back in the game with just 17 seconds remaining.
After the game, Davis just had to call out his younger teammates for failing to make the most of their opportunity on the floor:
“Our young guys gotta learn to play with the league, especially when our [starters] check out,” Davis said. “It’s a learning experience for our young guys.”
"It took a lot of mental toughness to finish this road trip the right way." Anthony Davis (35 pts, 18 reb) on closing out the road trip with a W. pic.twitter.com/OjsboGY2kg
— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) April 4, 2024
AD wasn’t at all pleased by how his teammates gave up three uncontested triples to let Washington get back in the game. As he said, though, this should be a learning experience for the younger players on the squad.
Either way, the Lakers can count themselves lucky for having averted disaster.
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