CLEVELAND — Los Angeles Lakers star big man Anthony Davis exited in the second half of Tuesday’s defeat to the Cavaliers suffering from flu-like symptoms. Davis didn’t return.
It’s not a COVID-19-related illness According to the team. Davis was suffering from a fever during the afternoon before the game’s start. After being removed from the game and the Lakers training staff gave medicines and fluids to Davis.
Lakers Coach Darvin Ham told reporters following the match in the post-game interview that Davis is the sole player on the team who is currently in a state of illness.
“It gradually got worse,” Ham said of Davis the illness. “His temperature was over 100, and I think it was 101, and then a shifts. He stated that he wanted try to try it out which was the case. However, he felt exhausted, too weak, thirsty — and dehydrated just somewhat. But that’s the time of the year with wintertime in mind and weather changes, as well as the changing climate being out of L.A. going to these various places.”
Davis joined the Lakers on their journey towards Toronto in the evening of Tuesday the status of his return for L.A.’s second phase of the back-to back against Raptors Raptors will be determined according to how he’s feeling by Wednesday morning, Ham said. The Lakers are currently 2-1 on their six-game road trip , with games against Toronto and the Philadelphia 76ers, and Detroit Pistons. Detroit Pistons remaining.
Davis only scored one point, shooting 1-for-3 from the free-throw line with three assists and two rebounds in 8 minutes on Tuesday.
Even without him, even without him, the Lakers -with LeBron James at the helm who scored 21 points and the season’s best 17 rebounding — were able to make an effort to win. The score was equal at 92 with just 8 min, 32 secs to go in the fourth quarter , but the Cavs took control by erupting 21-6 over 5 minutes 10 seconds. Cleveland defeated the season series 2-0. It was the first time this occurred to the James team over the nine years that in which he’s played the Cavs.
Donovan Mitchell scored 17 of his 43 points in the fourth period and was received with “MVP” shouts by crowd members of the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse crowd -which is a chant that was reserved for James in all those years.
“He did an excellent job of getting into our gaps and taking some really tough shots throughout the night long and was in an excellent state of mind,” James said of Mitchell. “But Mitchell is a special child.”
Davis entered the game with a bang, averaging 35.3 points on 64.8 percent shot from the floor, 45.5 percent from three and 88.5 percent at the line of fouls, with 15.6 rebound and 2.9 blocks over the last nine games.
The NBA named him the Western Conference Player of the Week on Monday. He played a role in helping L.A. to win three games on a winning streak prior to Game 3 against the Cavaliers.
“Next guy up!” James said when asked what they Lakers (10-13) will cope with being without Davis. “But it’s a big task. Literally and metaphorically in the context of what AD has done for us in the past couple of weeks.”
Thomas Bryant filled in Davis the minutes of Tuesday’s game with 19 points in his season and nine rebound from the bench. Russell Westbrook and Dennis Schroder scored 16 points each. Beyond Mitchell’s brilliance L.A. was done in 16 turnovers as in comparison to only eight turnovers for the Cavs and they shot 6-for-36 (16.7%) from 3 as a team. Lakers scored 6-for-36 (16.7 percent) from three as a group.
“My my hat’s off to the team members, men. They played to the fullest. This is a major loss, evidently,” Ham said. “It was a challenging match however, our players did their best. We were disappointed, but I’m not too upset. Our team really did compete.”
