It is better to be a weak team, which is conducive to the Lakers to continue to work hard and strive to climb on the ranking list.
After winning the strong enemy bucks, the Lakers on the way to the east won another city in Washington today, winning the Wizards 130-119. The victory was not good enough, because the Wizards were just the weak team near the threshold of the play-off in the east, and the main player played bill for 3 minutes and pulled his right leg out.
But this is another memorable victory for the Lakers this season, because Davis scored 55 points.
Davis had previously scored 59 points and 53 points in the Pelicans and 50 points in the first year after arriving at the Lakers, but these 55 points were not only the second highest score in his career, it is also the highest after the Lakers, and it is the first time after winning the championship that there is a 50 + score record.
55 points, marking the official beginning of the era when the Lakers took Davis as the core of the attack.
In the first 12 games of the new season, the Lakers won 2 and lost 10, which was terrible. Davis played 11 of them, with an average of 23.1 points, 10.5 rebounds, 2.0 cap, five or six free throws per game, and a three-point hit rate of 25%.
This data is similar to last season (23.1+9.9). If it continues, it cannot be said how abnormal Davis is. However, compared with Davis’s determination expressed in the training camp, standing still should not be his performance. He said that he practiced better than before this summer and was ready to play the new season. He even wrote a line on the big white board in the dressing room: “Give the damn ball to AD!”
The original number of shots and scoring performance can only make the Lakers rank at the end of the list. In order to get rid of this dilemma, it is unrealistic for James to have a God to play, and it is unrealistic for Wei Shao to be reborn, the only hope lies in Davis, who must come up with the state of the 2020 playoffs.
Since losing basketable nets in mid-November, the Lakers have won 8 and lost 2 in the last 10 games. Davis played 9 of them, with an average of 35.3 points and 15.6 rebounds, this is Davis at the MVP level. His season average score also rose to 28.6 points, with 12.8 rebounds, which is the highest professional and can be compared with the Pelican Davis.
Why is the contrast between front and back so big? This is due to the active adjustment of Lakers coach ham, two giants James and weishao.
The first is that Wei Shao is reduced to substitute, giving up the pursuit of scoring data, which is the first major achievement. For a star like Wei Shao, if you let him be the core of any team with low requirements on performance, it is definitely not difficult to play “Three double” on the court, so it is not difficult to play a substitute, willing to accept that the average score is less than 15 points, which requires great determination.
Once he made a decision, he took a step back and the sky was wide. Wei Shao played 28 minutes each time, pushing the connection between the two sets of lineups with high efficiency. When he was in good condition, he appeared in the last 5 minutes, in a bad state, Ham put him on the bench without complaint, which solved the problem that troubled the Lakers for more than a year: how the three giants coexist.
Whether defeating the stag in the First World War or The Wizard today, Wei Shao has achieved super high efficiency, with assists reaching 11 and 15 times respectively, but he only scored 6 points against the Wizard, this is completely different from the season when the main force was played, and the Clippers were only 2 points.
Secondly, James transferred the right to the ball, greatly reducing the chance of dominating the ball and letting weishao, Walker, Schroeder and even Reeves deal with the ball. He served as a transfer station at most and more regarded himself as an end weapon.
This is completely different from James’s years in the Cavaliers and the first few years in the Lakers. On the one hand, when James has too much power, he will not get a rest and the team will be out of order. On the other hand, there are many people who can dominate the ball now. If the ball is always in his own hands, these outside players can only be spectators, trying to adapt to no ball as Wei Shao did at the beginning, but they cannot release their abilities.
In fact, giving the ball rights will not reduce James’s assists. His assists have dropped to 6.5 times this season, which is still higher than last season. He played 6 games after his comeback, with a total of 36 assists. He only played in the stag, but the Lakers won 5 and lost 1.
James didn’t just score without cooperation. His current full-time job is to play 2 with Davis, with an efficiency of Chikao glass. Only Davis can catch his hidden attack on the Earth.
Now James and Davis are a bit like the state when Zhan Wei joined the team in 2010. At that time, everyone was wondering who would be the “boss” of the Heat team, actually who was the first core. At the beginning, I guessed Wade. After all, the heat was his team, but with a fight, Wade sold the top spot. He knew that James must be the absolute core, and the Heat could win the championship. Now James is taking Wade as an example.
James likes to hit the ground, Wei Shao likes to hang high, and Davis is very suitable for both passing styles, so he scored high in the last 9 games. Before getting 55 points, he scored 44 points against the Bucks in the first battle of the eastern expedition.
Does Davis like this have a chance to compete for MVP? Of course, the prerequisite is that the Lakers must have at least the first six scores.
In the article “Tatum is an MVP and the conditions are so harsh” I wrote a few days ago, I mentioned several popular Tatum, letters, Booker and Lucca of MVP this season, everyone wants to be elected under different conditions: Tatum’s Green Army must press the stag in the ranking, and the letter is the same on the contrary; Booker may have to keep the Suns in the top two, while Luca only needs to keep the calf in the top six.
Davis’s situation is similar to Lucca’s. He must lead the Lakers to rank above the top six. By the contrast between the Lakers’s previous and previous performances, he can gain a lot of support in the media voting. Although excellent fronts emerge one after another now, not many have reached Davis’s realm.
The Lakers are far from the top six. After the 3 consecutive wins, they can only rank 12th in the West, just surpassing Thunder. You have to cross the additional competition area to reach the first six.
However, it is not too difficult to cross the additional division, because the Lakers are only 2 games away from the sixth Warrior and 3 games away from the fifth king.
So how to locate the current status of the Lakers? They are a strong team and still a weak team?
I positioned it like this: The Lakers are still weak teams in ranking, and they are quasi-weak teams in mentality and quasi-strong teams in strength.
Ranking is a comprehensive reflection since the beginning of the season. The Lakers just played well in the last 10 games. The first 12 garbage performances cannot be erased, but how long the current state can last remains to be seen.
In terms of strength, the Lakers have found a way for the three giants to coexist, highlighting Davis’s tactical core role, with excellent role players like Walker and Reeves around him, everyone’s roles and responsibilities have been clearly defined, and their characteristics are also prominent. The whole team wins on the basis of defense, so it can be counted as a quasi-strong team. Whether it is a strong team or not, you still need to play more against the real strong teams such as the Bucks, the Green Army, the Warriors, and the sun to know.
What is commendable is that the improvement of their grades did not make James dizzy. They still played with a weak and strong mentality, especially after being reversed by Pacers, they treat every match carefully, whether they play bucks or wizards. Today, the wizard’s ball led by 27 points at most, and was chased to a single digit by Kuzma with a little slack. In order to prevent the first battle from being reversed and killed by the Pacers from repeating itself, James and Davis stayed on the court all the time, davis got 55 points until the overall situation had been decided.
Because they know that the current Lakers are not qualified to relax.
Su Qun column