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It took 22 minutes for the Lakers and the Golden State Warriors to play the final 110 seconds Saturday night, their showdown in Los Angeles buried in an avalanche of replay reviews and shot-clock malfunctions.
“Guys are scrambling, competing their asses off,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said. “And then boom, everything just stops.”
It took the smallest edge of a sneaker to wipe a LeBron James three-pointer off the board.
“I’ve never seen that be called before like that,” James said after playing his 1,480th career game, and scoring 40 points.
And earlier it took 28 seconds for the Warriors to capitalize on one possession when the shot clock mysteriously reset.
“Their points didn’t get taken away ‘cause the clock malfunctioned,” Ham said. “They continue to play through but it is what it is.”
What it was, actually, was a bit of a mess — the Lakers losing, 128-121, a crucial game to the team directly behind them in the Western Conference standings, losing crucial ground on the ones ahead of them and, in the process, losing Anthony Davis after only one quarter.
Davis sustained a swollen left eye and blurred vision — the team called it an “eye contusion” — after he took an elbow from Warriors rookie Trayce Jackson-Davis late in the first quarter. The Lakers forward will be reevaluated in the lead-up to Monday’s game with Atlanta.
“He got an elbow to the left eye, wasn’t able to see out of that left eye, vision blurred,” Ham said. “But looking at the doctors, they were working on him from the time he left the floor and went back to the training room through halftime. So the biggest thing is just making sure he’s OK and we’ll get an update on him pretty soon.”
It was the most pressing question after the loss — how the Lakers handled (and didn’t handle) Davis’ absence.
“When you lose AD, it just hurts the balance of our team,” James said. “We’ve been pretty good, our coaching staff has been pretty good with having a certain rotation and how we work in our rotations, so now that changes a lot of things.
“So, it was, obviously, Golden State, you tip your hat to them. They played exceptionally well. Obviously, having (Stephen Curry) back changed their dynamic. You can see the difference between when Steph is on the floor and the last couple of games when he didn’t play. So it’s just tough when you have a big component to the puzzle and then you don’t have it.”
The Lakers (36-32) all understood that. The fourth quarter? Kind of a mystery.
It started early in the final frame after Taurean Prince made a three. The following Warriors possession, the shot clock jumped from 10 seconds back to the original 24. Jackson-Davis eventually scored, four seconds after the clock should’ve expired.
Lakers star LeBron James reacts after play was stopped because of a shot-clock malfunction during the fourth quarter Saturday.
(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)
“The shot clock malfunctioned during live play at that time and that is not a reviewable matter,” crew chief David Guthrie said to a pool reporter.
In regard to the James three, Guthrie said the play can be overturned by review (all close threes/twos are) at a dead-ball stoppage.
“James’ left foot is out of bounds as he begins to shoot,” Guthrie said.
An image of the play on the game broadcast showed James’ heel over the sideline, but there appeared to be a shadow under his foot.
“I didn’t believe I stepped on the line, obviously,” James said. “I knew how much space I had over there. And when I shoot, I shoot on my tippy toes, so it’s kind of hard for me to have a heel down.”
The points were taken away during a review the Lakers initiated on an out-of-bounds call that resulted in a jump ball. After the Warriors won the tip, Draymond Green chased down the ball and threw it off Austin Reaves.
The Lakers again challenged, officials saying Green was out of bounds when he made the save.
Following that review, it took nearly nine minutes for play to restart because the shot clock wouldn’t run. Eventually, after four attempts, the game continued with Lakers public address announcer Lawrence Tanter counting down the shot clock inside the final 10 seconds.
At one point during the delay, James looked over at the broadcast table and said “I’m too old for this s—.”
“It was just stay loose as much as we probably could. I mean, obviously, it was a lengthy pause of the game,” James said.
