Anthony Davis & LeBron James veto another Darvin Ham decision late 4th quarter vs Wizards
LeBron James, Anthony Davis and the LA Lakers recently fell to the Washington Wizards, who remain one of the worst-performing teams in the league. While the Lakers are attempting to secure their spot in the playoffs while staving off a play-in tournament appearance, they dropped a game to the Wizards. From the sounds of things, the loss wasn't without some late-game drama.
After jumping out to an early lead in the first, the Lakers led by just seven heading into the half. While they came out strong in the second half, the Wizards outscored the Lakers by 10 in the fourth to secure a 125-120 win.
As the Lakers attempted to stave off a late-game comeback, LeBron James and Anthony Davis found themselves taking matters into their own hands. With the Lakers' lead dwindling, James and Davis made the decision to check themselves back into the game rather than allow coach Darvin Ham to steer the ship.
While speaking to media members in the locker room after the game, Davis opened up on the situation:
"(We) had a comfortable lead, both teams kind of pulled the starters and put the bench in. We give up 3 threes, turnover, they cut it to 5, 17 seconds, their ball. I don't think Ham even asked. I got up, Bron got up. We're going to get a stop...
"And if they foul, we make free throws. ... It's a learning lesson, especially for our young guys, to just come in and stay ready."
Looking at LeBron James' comments about vetoing Darvin Ham's coaching scheme in February 'Battle for LA' following Anthony Davis' comments
The situation explained by Anthony Davis was similar to a story told by LeBron James on he and JJ Redick's Mind The Game podcast. During the Feb. 28 installment of the Battle For LA against the LA Clippers, James wasn't a fan of Ham's coaching schemes.
As he explained, Ham had built switching into the game plan on the defensive end of the floor when covering Kawhi Leonard. As James explained, there were two problems with the defensive scheme.
The first was that switching other players onto Kawhi Leonard wasn't a favorable matchup for the Lakers, given Leonard's ability to score from all three levels. The second was that James is incredibly familiar with how Clippers coach Tyronn Lue coaches.
Because of the extensive time spent playing under Lue in Cleveland, James reckons he knows Lue's coaching schemes better than anyone. If the Lakers continued to switch, Leonard would continue forcing those switches until he got a favorable matchup.
Much like Anthony Davis explained following the recent loss to the Wizards, in the Lakers-Clippers game, LeBron took matters into his own hands. The difference between the situation described by Anthony Davis and the one described by James was that the Lakers beat the Clippers.
Following the latest loss to the Wizards, the Lakers are one game behind the Sacramento Kings in the Western Conference standings with five games left.