Lakers Credit ‘Killer’ Anthony Davis, Aggressive D’Angelo Russell For Game 4 Win Over Nuggets

The Los Angeles Lakers were visibly frustrated after losing Game 3 to the Denver Nuggets. They had one chance to keep their playoff hopes high and got the best of it. LeBron James and his Lakers teammates showed up their aggressive side in Game 4 and celebrated a good win over the Nuggets.

The Lakers have lost 11 games to the Nuggets, but broke the curse and celebrated a 119-108 win at Crypto.com Arena. Everyone elevated their performance and D’Angelo Russell did score 21 points this time. He went scoreless in Game 3 and fans didn’t like any of it.

LeBron: “For AD to clean glass, 20 of them on the defensive end…it’s just key for a lot of the things we want to do.

“AD doesn’t have to prove anything to anybody. He’s one of the best bigs we have in the game. He’s one of the best bigs in the world. He’s shown that again.” pic.twitter.com/8JfvsOO02p

— Michael Corvo (@michaelcorvo_) April 28, 2024

In the brilliant win over Denver, Davis played 42 minutes and scored 25 points and 23 rebounds. He was dealing with a wrist issue, but had set his priorities straight.

“AD does so much for our team, offensively, defensively, obviously rebounding the ball,” said Austin Reaves (21 points, six assists). “For him to go get 23 in a game like this, it means a lot…That’s obviously been a point of emphasis. It’s something that we have to clean up. And you could tell with his mentality, he was just like, ‘I’ll do this.’”

LeBron couldn’t agree more. He and Davis have been really consistent in the playoffs.

“We knew we had to rebound, and obviously AD was killer,” said LeBron.

Lakers had to win Game 4

Russell’s disappointing performance in Game 3 made fans angry and some even booed him. He didn’t even take part in team huddles and preferred munching his snack instead. Game 4 was different. Russell delivered 21 points in the game and helped his team win this one.

“I try to be as humble as I can,” D-Lo said about resetting mentally. “I just think I’ve been through it all before. Try to prepare myself for these times now when everybody’s watching, when everybody has something to say.”

It was a must-win game for the purple and gold and Russell understood the assignment.

“This isn’t the place that you’re gonna come out and try to dominate the game when you got LeBron and AD right next to you,” said Russell. “So for me to come out, Game 3, not scoring, and come out and be ultra-aggressive and try to do all that other stuff, that’s not really me. And I know that’s what people were expecting me to do. So it made it easier for me to prepare my mind for that approach. Let the game come to me, be aggressive, simple as that. We looked up, and everybody was aggressive. Everybody was pitching in.”