The Lakers endure a costly defeat against the Warriors following an unfortunate injury to Anthony Davis.

The Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers were two seasoned teams that entered the season with hopes of winning championships but haven’t succeeded yet.

As the ninth and tenth seeds in the Western Conference heading into their match on Saturday night, the two Pacific Division rivals were hoping to gain some ground in the standings. With all of the stars in the starting lineup, this game between these two clubs seemed very interesting. After Anthony Davis sustained an injury, the Warriors emerged victorious, winning 128-121 to secure a vital victory with just a few games remaining.

The teams were level at nine at the beginning, but it wasn’t the beginning of the scoring as the Lakers’ D’Angelo Russell and Austin Reaves had all nine, while the Warriors’ Jonathan Kuminga and Andrew Wiggins had all nine. Kuminga was forcing the Lakers to pay for their deliberate effort to leave him open early.

LeBron James, though, soon got rolling like he does against the Warriors, scoring eight points in a row, including back-to-back triples, to take the lead.

Golden State’s Klay Thompson was also impressive early on off the bench, but Davis eventually got inside to give the Lakers a 36–30 advantage.

At the start of the second quarter, D’Angelo Russell fired back with a 3-pointer, and Thompson answered right after with one of his own. Stephen Curry wasn’t scoring at the moment, so Thompson’s contribution off the bench was crucial for the Warriors.

As the Warriors began to narrow their lead, James produced a huge four-point play for Los Angeles.

Sadly, Davis missed the whole second quarter for the Lakers after getting a poke in the eye and returning to the locker room. The Lakers’ inside defense consequently suffered greatly, as the Warriors took a narrow 67-66 lead into halftime.

Sadly, Davis’ eye contusion kept him out of the game for the remainder of it, forcing the Lakers to play without him. As the Warriors gradually increased their lead in the third quarter, this made things extremely difficult for the Lakers on both ends.

Eventually, Curry got things going for Golden State with a four-point play that gave them their first double-digit lead. But the Lakers responded admirably, as James finished a three-point play and Reaves drained a three.

With almost any defense being played, the Warriors were still poised to enter the fourth quarter leading 102–93.

In the fourth, James attempted to enter superhero mode with back-to-back three-pointers, and Reaves responded with one of his own.

From then on, the game became a ref show with lots of obstacles. James’ triple appeared to cut the Lakers’ lead to four, but it was later determined that he was out of bounds, therefore it was taken off the board. Thereafter, the shot clock malfunctioned, delaying things for over fifteen minutes.

That deflated the Lakers considerably since they were never able to bounce back and ultimately lost for a steep price.