Anthony Davis says LeBron James in full flow is 'always fun to watch'
Wednesday 5 February 2020 12:00, UK
Anthony Davis said it is "always fun to watch" his team-mate LeBron James in full flow after the Los Angeles Lakers' leader launched a three-point barrage to seal his team's win over the San Antonio Spurs.
James scored 19 of his 36 points in the fourth quarter while hitting five three-pointers in an incredible three-minute span.
He absorbed contact and tumbled to the court while his fifth triple dropped through the net. The entire Lakers roster left the bench and crossed the court, gleefully picking up their leader while a sellout crowd roared.
"When the guy gets hot like that, it's always fun to watch him," Davis said, laughing at the Lakers' group celebration after the final three. "It wasn't the plan. We all just kind of ran over there and jumped on him."
"That is what we're all about," James said. "Our team, anytime anyone is having success in the game, we cheer like it is our own. So having that camaraderie, having that brotherhood, even though they're beating you up, it is just a pretty cool feeling."
James added nine assists and seven rebounds, while Davis and Kyle Kuzma had 18 points apiece as the Lakers beat San Antonio for the third time, sweeping the season series.
After the Spurs chipped away at the Lakers' big lead late in the third quarter, James and Kuzma put the game away with a combined seven three-pointers in three-and-a-half minutes to start the fourth.
James' shots seemed to increase in difficulty with each possession, but he buried them all.
When asked what the Spurs could have done when James got rolling, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich quipped: "Make sure you get good pictures."
DeMar DeRozan had 28 points, nine rebounds and seven assists in his hometown for the Spurs. Bryn Forbes added 13 points, but one night after the Spurs blew a late lead in a three-point loss to the Clippers, they returned to Staples Center and fell to 0-2 at the start of San Antonio's eight-game road trip while a rodeo occupies their home AT&T Center arena.
"As a competitor, it is what you want to play against," DeRozan said of the LA back-to-back. "I don't look at it like it is being tough. It is part of the job, part of the game, and as a competitor, you want to compete against the best. You worry about the toll afterwards."
The Lakers returned to a semblance of normality at Staples Center in their first home game since their emotionally-charged return last Friday for their first game following Kobe Bryant's death.
Bryant's two retired jerseys still remain isolated in a spotlight on the wall high above the court, and the Lakers crowd broke into a spontaneous chant of "Kobe! Kobe!" in the third quarter. The chant returned in the final seconds of the game.
Before the game, Popovich gave a stirring answer to a question about Bryant's place in the game.
The US Olympic team coach said Bryant was "special to all of us in different ways. He was like a superhero who was actually human. There aren't any superheroes that are really human, but we kind of thought of him as one of those kind of people.
"When somebody is sick for a long time and you expect it, you deal with that. But when somebody is taken the way that he and his daughter and all the other people were taken, that makes it a tragedy and more painful in some ways."
Lakers center Dwight Howard revealed Bryant had agreed to help him in the All-Star Slam Dunk contest later this month in Chicago. Howard had recently made it known that he wanted to do a dunk with Bryant involved.
"I didn't get a chance to tell him how appreciative I was for our time together, how thankful I was," Howard said of Bryant, his team-mate with the Lakers in the tumultuous 2012-13 season. "I took it pretty hard. It still doesn't even seem real.
