Los Angeles Lakers star Anthony Davis finished the win over the Atlanta Hawks with 22 points, 15 rebounds, six assists, two steals, and one block.
Despite stuffing the stat sheet, finishing the game was arguably his greatest accomplishment.
Davis suffered a corneal abrasion after getting poked in the eye by Golden State Warriors big man Trayce Jackson-Davis in the Lakers’ loss on March 16. He left that game in the closing seconds of the first quarter and sat out the rest of the way.
His emphatic return underscores teammate LeBron James’ take on how much Davis affects how they play.
Davis noted that he is not out of the woods with the eye just yet.
“Yeah, just going to the eye doctors, figuring things out. That’s all I can tell y’all right now,” Davis told reporters from the locker following the win over Atlanta on March 18. “I’m not telling ya’ll something, for sure. … Just got to do a couple more things. But after those things, everything should be fine.”
Davis has already made his most appearances since the 2017-18 season and could be on track to set a new career-high mark depending on how the Lakers manage him down the stretch.
He noted that he hadn’t planned on wearing anything protective, and detailed the severity.
Anthony Davis Doesn’t Plan to Wear Protective Goggles
“No, I’ve been through that phase in high school,” Davis said about wearing goggles. “I’m out of that phase. I mean, obviously, if the doctors told me that I needed it. I asked that question, obviously, and I didn’t need it. They said if I wanted to, but I didn’t need it. So no, I wasn’t planning on wearing it.
“I just couldn’t see. The corneal abrasion was actually right in the middle of my eye. So it wasn’t like off to the side, so anytime I looked, it was just blurry. My eye was swollen. I thought my eye was open, but it wasn’t. Just kept watering, just felt like sand was just in my eye.
“It was just better closed, and I couldn’t really see. So just been icing it, Saturday after the first quarter, and just it got better later that night.”
Davis said he sat in the dark and the swelling went down.
He said that he went to the doctor and that he “found out some other things” and had his eyes dilated on gameday. Davis said he was seeing clearly again after the win over the Hawks.
LeBron James Talks Anthony Davis’ Impact on Lakers
They are 1-3 when he sits this season. The Lakers are also still fending off challenges from the Warriors and even the Houston Rockets for ninth place in the Western Conference and a home game in the opening round of the Play-In Tournament.
“Obviously, some things that we can’t do without without AD,” James told reporters on March 16.
“That’s having another threat always on the floor, both offensively and defensively versus a team [the Warriors] that has multiple threats. So, obviously, when you lose AD it just hurts the balance of our team. We’ve been pretty good, our coaches have been pretty good at having a certain rotation, how we work in our rotation. So now that changes a lot of things.”
Davis’ availability was a game-time decision. He emerged from the win over the Hawks no worse for the wear.
That should bode well for the Lakers, who have three days off before their next outing.
They’ll return from the mini-break to host the Philadelphia 76ers followed by the Indiana Pacers before heading out on a six-game road trip. Only two of the games on that trip are against playoff teams, including their second tilt against the Pacers.
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