Anthony Davis' offensive inconsistency continues as Lakers get ...

SAN FRANCISCO — Entering Thursday’s Game 2 between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors, the past 15 home teams that dropped Game 1 went on to win Game 2 — with an average margin of victory of 17.1 points per game.

Now make that 16 straight.

The Warriors crushed the Lakers, 127-100, at the Chase Center to even the best-of-seven Western Conference semifinals series at 1-1.

Behind an onslaught of 3s in the second and third quarters, the Warriors dropped back-to-back 40-point quarters — for the first time in franchise history — causing Lakers head coach Darvin Ham to pull his starters to begin the fourth quarter. Through the beginning of the series, Golden State has made 42 3-pointers, setting an NBA record for the most 3s hit by a team through the opening two games of a playoff series.

There were a few obvious adjustments that the Warriors appeared likely to make — and did: playing smaller (the key to their 14-0 run late in Game 1), putting the ball in Steph Curry’s hands earlier in possessions, and ignoring the Lakers’ shooters even more than in Game 1 to load up against Anthony Davis.

“They made their adjustments,” LeBron James said. “We knew they were going to do that. That’s what a championship team does. They held serve on their home court tonight.”

The Warriors’ pregame counter was unexpected, with Golden State inserting JaMychal Green into the starting lineup in place of Kevin Looney, who the team said wasn’t feeling well. JaMychal Green, a career 36.8-percent 3-point shooter (37.8 percent this season), gave the Warriors another weapon in the corners and above the break, preventing Davis and James from completely ignoring Golden State’s starting bigs the way they did in Game 1. Green matched his playoff career-high with 15 points, including three 3s.

His presence also allowed the Warriors to maintain size in the starting group, with Draymond Green matching up against Davis and roaming off of Jarred Vanderbilt. That strategy proved effective, with Draymond Green containing Davis, for the most part, and the Warriors crowding the paint on Davis’ rolls and catches. The Lakers have had a season-long problem of not running their offense through Davis consistently — an issue that falls on Davis, the Lakers’ ballhandlers and the coaching staff.

Davis, who played in his 20th consecutive game for the first time since the Orlando bubble, scored just 11 points on 5-of-11 shooting. That was a considerable drop-off from his 30-point performance on 11-of-19 shooting in Game 1. In a troubling trend, Davis’ scoring performances have yo-yoed far too often this postseason. Here are his point totals by game: 22, 13, 31, 12, 31, 16, 30, 11. Each 20-plus-point outing has been followed by an outing of 16 or fewer points.

Davis was passive by his standards, settling far too frequently for elbow jumpers and long floaters. He made all three of his attempts within six feet of the rim, though the fact that he only attempted three of such shots is a problem unto itself.

Here’s an early possession from the game: Davis, who is already 1-of-3 at this point, rolls into space. Looney is several feet off of him. Davis has room to put the ball down and attack Looney off of the dribble. With Jordan Poole helping on the drive, Davis has a clear kick-out pass to Troy Brown Jr., who shot 43.4 percent on right corner 3s this season, per NBA.com. Instead, Davis takes a free-throw line jumper,  a shot he’s made at about 38.2 percent, according to NBA.com.

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“I think they were a little more active in the pocket,” Davis said. “They kind of clogged the paint in our pocket passes that were pretty open Game 1. Didn’t help that we didn’t really shoot the ball well from 3. If we start making those shots, making those 3s, be tough for them to pull in to kind of take away those pocket passes, us playing in the paint.”

Here’s another example of Davis settling. The Lakers run a sideline out-of-bounds set, with a quick-hitting pass to Davis in the high post area. Davis faces up against Looney, and takes one dribble toward the rim. Curry, nearly 10 or so feet away from Austin Reaves, digs down. Looney also bodies Davis on his first dribble, and Davis is forced to pick up the ball, launching a contested floater with essentially five Warriors collapsing on him.

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Davis disagreed with the notion that the Warriors made an adjustment to make him uncomfortable.

“I don’t think so,” Davis said. “I mean, I took all the same shots I took in Game 1. I just missed them. Elbow jumpers. Pocket passes to the floater. Same exact looks. Didn’t shoot no shot that I didn’t shoot in Game 1. Just missed them. That’s all.”

D’Angelo Russell agreed, claiming the Warriors did “nothing” to slow down Davis.

“I think he just missed the shots he was taking, honestly,” Russell said. “He missed a few of those midrangers that were just money for him the first game.”

Davis certainly misses makeable shots, but the Warriors were far more aggressive in packing the paint and ignoring most of the Lakers from the perimeter.

Watch how many Warriors defenders are in the paint during this Reaves-Davis pick-and-roll action. Klay Thompson and Curry are happy ignoring Russell and Jarred Vanderbilt on the wing and in the corner, respectively. Reaves tries to thread a needle to Davis, but Moses Moody pokes the ball loose and Draymond Green stunts and recovers well, knocking the ball off of Davis. Davis is surrounded by four defenders. But freeze the possession at the 00:03 mark and you’ll see four white jerseys surrounding Davis.

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“I thought they did a good job of crowding the paint and not allowing us, trying to prevent us from playing downhill as much,” Ham said. “That, in turn, affects what we do at the free-throw line.”

Davis wasn’t the only culprit of settling for jumpers, as Los Angeles didn’t attempt a free throw until the 1:03 mark of the second quarter and only shot nine free throws through three quarters — a steep reduction from their 29 attempts in Game 1.

Ham, meanwhile, credited Draymond Green, the former Defensive Player of the Year who finished fourth in the award’s voting this season, with disrupting Davis.

“Dray, he’s going to do his work early,” Ham said. “… If A is not trying to go at him, he’s going into secondary action after getting the ball to A. He’s great at that, whether he has to switch or talk his guy through the scenario. He’s been top-shelf his entire career in that regard. Again, we got to go back and look at ways we can move A around, put him in different spacing, different actions, just try to diversify his attack.”

This is exactly what Ham was talking about: Draymond Green jostles with Davis on the left elbow extended, so much so that the Lakers bench believes he should be whistled for a foul call given he’s lunging on Davis’ back leg. Davis gathers himself and faces up, which is when he’s at his most dangerous in isolation scenarios. He attacks baseline, but Green mirrors him and slaps the ball away. Davis can’t collect it and the Warriors dart out in transition the other way.

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Draymond Green, who had expressed disgust with his defensive performance after Game 1, shared insight into his defensive strategy against Davis postgame.

“AD is a great player, and when you allow him to get to the spots he wants to get to, there’s a reason he wants to get to those spots,” Green said. “He’s great at it, and he’s not going to miss many. When you try to make him do things on our terms, make it a little bit tougher. Now in saying that, you can play that same defense and he can have a great game and that’s why he’s great and that’s why he’s been great for this long. But I think for us, we’ve just got to make them take tough contested shots. If you do the best you can do defensively, you have to live with the result.”

As for potential counters for Game 3 and beyond, the Lakers need to run more empty corner pick-and-rolls for Davis, as that gives him more space to operate like in the clip below (and makes the kick-out pass to the weakside more obvious). When Davis has a running start, he can finish over the top of any Warriors defender.

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In general, the Lakers need to run Davis off of pindowns and use diversion tactics — screen-the-screener, cross-screens, backdoor cuts — to free Davis up and leverage his athleticism advantage over the Warriors’ bigs. The Lakers can also bust out their double-drag screening actions more.

It’d be unfair and inaccurate to place all of the blame on Game 2 on Davis. He has been the Lakers’ best player during their postseason run. He’s been the best defender in the playoffs, by and large. He’s still battling through a foot injury. He looked gassed, at times, after playing 44 minutes in Game 1 and controlling the action with his stellar defense (and then scoring 30 on the other end).

The Lakers struggled offensively as a group. Aside from James (23 points on 10-of-18 shooting), who posted his highest-scoring first quarter (14 points) in the playoffs since 2018, and Rui Hachimura (21 points on 8-of-14 shooting), the Lakers both couldn’t make shots and were too jump-shot reliant. James finally resembled himself, at least in the first half, making his first two 3s and exploding toward the rim multiple times. It was the 49th time in his career he scored 20-plus in the first half of a playoff game.

Defensively, the Warriors’ smaller groupings unleashed even better shooting looks, as the Lakers were stretched thin and not as sharp. Los Angeles started hedging and trapping more, and the Warriors predictably shredded those coverages with the 4-on-3 and 3-on-2 actions they excel at.

Klay Thompson scored 30 points on 8-of-11 3-point shooting and Curry added 20 points and 12 assists. Coming into Game 2, the Lakers had yet to allow 40 points in a quarter in the postseason. Then, Golden State torched them, outscoring them 84-47 over 24 minutes.

Moving forward, the Lakers need Davis to be more engaged — on both ends. He slipped defensively in Game 2, due to a combination of fatigue, foul trouble and a shifting scheme. When Davis hedged, the Warriors obliterated the Lakers with their pinball passing. They finished with 38 assists on 48 field-goals — a ridiculous figure.

After Game 1, Vanderbilt was asked if there is a tell that Davis is going to have a dominant performance. Vanderbilt pointed out Davis’ effort on the glass early as a harbinger of his mindset.

“I’d say when he attacks the glass like that,” Vanderbilt said. “I think it just puts that aggression in him.”

To Vanderbilt’s point, Davis only had five rebounds in the first half and finished with seven overall — one fewer than Looney (eight), who played nearly one-third the number of minutes as Davis. That can’t happen. The Lakers can only beat the Warriors if Davis is dominating as the best player on the floor.

Game 3 is Saturday in Los Angeles at Crypto.com Arena, where the Lakers are 4-0 this postseason. Despite the crushing nature of their loss, not unlike their Game 2 loss to the Grizzlies, the Lakers are confident that they will counter — be it by making more shots or running better sets — with the appropriate response.

“We’ll be better,” Davis said. “I’ll be better making those shots. We’ll get back home on our home floor and try to take care of business.”

(Top Photo of Anthony Davis and Draymond Green: Cary Edmondson / USA Today Sports)