Lakers Notes: Anthony Davis, LeBron James, Russell Westbrook

It took a while, but the Lakers finally got another win, and they mostly have forward/center Anthony Davis to thank.

While hardly looking like playoff contenders, the Lakers snapped a five-game losing streak courtesy of a 116-103 over Kevin Durant and the road-weary Nets. It happened without LeBron James (adductor injury) and came after Davis scored a season-high 37 points.

“I knew I had to dominate to get this win. With LeBron out, a lot of guys lean on me to get the job done,” Davis told reporters, via Dave McMenamin of ESPN. 

One of the Lakers’ biggest issues, it seems, is getting Davis the ball more in the second half. All season, they’ve struggled to do so, and all season, they’ve been bad.

Those two things seem to be related. But on this day, it all changed.

“That’s been the plan and figuring out how to get him more touches and in rhythm,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said. “Everything was aggressive,” 

Is this the start of a new trend, or a flash in the pan. With these Lakers, we can’t help but assume it’s the latter.

But Davis indicated that perhaps it’s the start of something good.

“We wanted to win (Sunday), for sure. Let us feel good going into this off week before Friday’s game,” Davis said. “It gives a chance for guys to kind of get away from the game for a couple days and reset and come back with a mentality that we got to run off some [wins] in a row.”

• For more on the Lakers, check out our latest video on why the Lakers may want to consider trading him right here.
• Also, Ric Bucher of Fox Sports talked to some front-office types about the idea of James being traded to the Suns. You can check that out here.
• Finally, Durant had this to say about Russell Westbrook, via ESPN’s Nick Friedell: “… [T]o see the role Russ is playing right now, he’s just affecting the game in so many different ways.”