Los Angeles Lakers: 3 reasons they lost in the first round of the NBA playoffs
3 reasons the Los Angeles Lakers lost: Superstar injuries
The Los Angeles Lakers found themselves in seventh place in the Western Conference at the end of the season in large part because their two stars, LeBron James and Anthony Davis, missed large chunks of the season due to injury. Unfortunately, both players returning in the season’s final weeks did not cure them of the injury bug.
Davis missed 36 games this season, most of those with an Achilles injury. He has dealt in the past with everything from shoulder to knee injuries, back contusions, and even a strained left groin in 2017. Nursing a knee injury in the early games of the series, Davis hurt that same left groin late in the first half of Game 4.
The Lakers had, just barely, outscored the Suns through 14 quarters of basketball in this series when Davis was injured. They lost the subsequent 10 quarters by 50 points, with the Suns outpacing the Lakers 227 to 227. To help with the math, that’s a cool 20 points per game.
LeBron James has been in a position before of having to carry a team when a co-star went down. He did so in the 2015 NBA Finals and drug the series to 6 games when he was with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He had no fellow stars in 2007 when the Cavaliers made the NBA Finals simply because LeBron James was unstoppable.
He did not have the juice to do that this time around. That could be in part because James is finally feeling the effects of Father Time, but more so it should be chalked up to the lingering effects of the high ankle sprain he suffered in late March.
James not only missed six weeks of games due to the injury, it clearly is hampering his explosion and conditioning. James found himself walled out of the paint by the likes of Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson. He settled for outside jumpers, which sometimes fell (hello Game 2 victory) and often did not.
The superstar forward was decent on both ends of the court in this series, but he often took possessions off and couldn’t be the heliocentric puppet-master he has been in years past, and that players such as Luka Doncic are this season. To be technical, he simply didn’t have it.
For James, even as he nears age 37, this offseason should provide plenty of time to heal his ankle and he can hit next season fully healthy. Davis, however, has proven vulnerable to a wide variety of injuries. That’s not a knock against his character, especially as he tried his best to play through the pain early in Game 6.
The reality is that the Lakers will have to deal with the high probability of Davis getting injured again next season. When he stays healthy this pairing has proven they can win it all. When they’re not, they can flame out in the first round.