3. When the Los Angeles Lakers looked truly motivated, they looked good
Again, there has been a lack of energy and care on the court for the Los Angeles Lakers this season but that very well could be for the reasons already outlined. However, there have been two distinct moments where the Lakers really looked motivated and they looked really good in those aspects.
The first was in the final minutes of the game against the Los Angeles Clippers. LeBron James was really engaged and had that great double sequence of going through four Clippers to make a putback on his own miss and then following that with exceptional defense against both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
The other moment of motivation came from the Lakers’ other superstar, Anthony Davis, against the Utah Jazz.
AD was coming off of a pretty lackluster and passive showing against the Toronto Raptors and was coming up against Defensive Player of the Year, Rudy Gobert. Davis, after being called out for being passive against Toronto, took it to Gobert and outclassed him on both ends.
Davis scored 42 points and hauled in 12 boards and took it to Gobert and looked like the unstoppable AD that we have been touted the entire time during the season’s hiatus.
The Lakers are obviously going to be motivated in the playoffs so the hope here is that with more energy and more motivation the shots will start to hit and LeBron James and Anthony Davis will do what they are supposed to do: win a playoff series.
I would still like to see them show some motivation in these seeding games, though. We will see how motivated they are against the Indiana Pacers on Saturday.