Anthony Davis Defends Lakers Bench Player With Bold Statement

The Los Angeles Lakers had a slow start in the game against the Memphis Grizzlies. However, they were able to finish the game with a 108-84 win, earning a 5-2 record of the season. LeBron James scored 22 points, 13 rebounds and 8 assists. Anthony Davis scored 17 points and 9 rebounds, and the Lakers bench was more than brilliant.

Montrezl Harrell gave the Lakers a nice boost off the bench and that’s exactly what the team needed at this point of the regular season.

Harrell scored 16 points, 9 rebounds and 2 steals in 21 minutes off the Lakers bench. The reigning Sixth Man of the Year is averaging 12.9 points and 7.6 rebounds in 25 minutes per game with the Lakers.

Lakers head coach Frank Vogel is more than impressed with the newly-acquired Lakers player.

“You have to honor everything he does on the offensive end, whether he’s ducking in or rolling to the basket,” he said. “He’s really picked up his offensive rebounding from early in the season and obviously gives us great defensive determination and fight as well with his communication. I thought he did a great job, not only rebounding the ball defensively but boxing out.

“It’s a selfless thing, to give yourself up, to get your body into a bigger guy like Valancunias and let some of the guards, or you saw Bron with 13 defensive rebounds. It lets some of the guards come back and rebound while he’s doing the dirty work underneath and wiping the crashes off of the glass. It doesn’t show up in the box score, but he really did a great job of that.”

Anthony Davis received a lot of support from the bench

The Lakers big man has words of praise for Harrell. According to Davis, Harrell is a brilliant player who brings the spark off the bench.

“He’s a hell of a player,” Davis said of Harrell. “He brings that spark, that energy, off the bench. He’s able to get to his floaters, he stays on the glass offensively and gets us extra possessions, he’s great at defense and is continuously learning to adapt to our system — on both sides of the ball — but when you’re a special talent like he is, he’s able to adapt quickly. When he comes in, we know who’s going to bring that energy. Whether we’re down or up, he’s going to bring that spark for us, either to get us back into games or increase leads.”

Lakers players do their best to build strong chemistry. Rob Pelinka added new faces to the roster in the offseason. Players needed time to work on their chemistry, but things look really well at the moment. Let’s not forget that LA had short offseason.