NBA FINALS: LAKERS VS. HEAT

October 2, 2020

Anthony Davis

Los Angeles Lakers

Game 2: Postgame

Los Angeles Lakers 124, Miami Heat 114

Q. You and LeBron are the first Lakers teammates to score 30-plus in a Finals game since Kobe and Shaq in 2002. I asked LeBron the same question: Are there elements that you see of both Kobe's game and Shaq's game in your game, and both Kobe's game and Shaq's game in LeBron's game? And if there are, could you describe them?

ANTHONY DAVIS: Those two guys are obviously special. They are a duo that's special together. They are the best duo we've seen. Multiple championships. They both were so dominant. I know they had a little sit-down and they were talking about they were arguing because they both wanted to be so dominant, they both wanted to be great and they both wanted to win, and that's why they jelled together outside of everything else that you might have heard that they were going through.

But you know, those two guys were selfless. They both had a competitive spirit with themselves to will their teams to win. I think me and Bron are the same way.

We are two guys who want to win no matter the circumstance. We both want to make sure that we do whatever it takes to help our team win. When you have two guys that are selfless ...

It's not always going to be pretty. Sometimes we are going to argue and have disagreements, but we know it's coming from the right place. When you have two guys who want to win as bad as we do and want to be dominant every single game, you have games like tonight where two guys, we're able to score the basketball and able to rebound and able to find guys.

It's rare you see it. We know we have something special with us two and this team, and just trying to capitalize on it.

Q. Who is Shaq and who is Kobe out of you and LeBron?

ANTHONY DAVIS: He's Kobe because he handles the ball, and I'm Shaq because I play in the post.

Q. Frank was saying no matter who Miami has in their offense, they are tough to guard. What about their offense kind of forces you guys into uncomfortable positions, and where do you feel you guys can make growth in two days?

ANTHONY DAVIS: They just play so free. Everybody is moving. Everybody is cutting. Everybody on the floor is live. Everybody just is kind of doing random things. It's tough on the defense. You really have to talk. You really have to communicate. You really have to know what schemes you're in.

They put a lot of pressure on the defense. For us, we have to do a better job communicating on the defensive end and being in coverage. Talking in coverage and making sure guys know what we're in. We can't assume somebody is going to be somewhere. We have to talk and relay the messages in the defensive schemes and the calls to one another so that we let the other guy know what we're in, so we don't have too many hiccups or too many mistakes.

In the third quarter they had a ton of open layups and open threes, and they made us pay.

Q. All season long, the message has been: Stay in the moment; don't look too far ahead. But here you guys are, two games from the goal that you set for yourselves 12, 13 months ago when the season began. How important is that stay-in-the-moment message for you guys, specifically, right now, in this?

ANTHONY DAVIS: It's huge. This team has shown in both games that they are able to fight back. Even when they are down 20, 30, whatever it is, they are able to fight back and make plays.

So we can't get too high, especially with this team. They didn't even have two of their top scorers, two of their best players. They always have that next-man-up mentality. They come every night, they play hard, they play physical, they play aggressive.

We came in tonight and said this is a must-win for us. We're going to come in the next game and say it's a must-win, and the next game it's a must-win and so on and so forth.

We know what this team is capable of. I think they had four guys or five guys with 15-plus. Guys coming off the bench scoring and playing well. We have to lock in on those guys and show them respect, as well, which we do. But this team can play. We have to be wary of that and make sure we come in and be better in our defensive schemes, which is going to help us win.

Q. You guys have obviously figured out how to compete at a high level in this weird environment, but I wonder on a night like tonight, your agent, Rich Paul is here, Jeanie was here and family members of different players. Are you drawing any energy at all from the folks off the floor?

ANTHONY DAVIS: It's kind of dark over there, so you don't really see them. I'm not sure if they are allowed to make any noise or anything like that. We really bring energy from ourselves. Our bench does a great job of giving us energy. Cheering for us. You see all the animation our team does on the sideline. J.R., Dion, Dwight, JaVale, all those guys, Kostas, are the first ones when we make a big play.

That's where we get our energy from, within each other, and go out and play as hard as we can. When you have a team that's always cheering us on and celebrating when we make big plays, you find a little bit of extra energy, even when you're tired.

I know sometimes when I've been down the floor and might get a little winded, and I see the guys cheering us on, yelling, screaming at us, you find the extra energy to do whatever you have to do to help this team win.

Q. You mentioned earlier today just the concept of, it's not always pretty, sometimes there are disagreements and arguments a little bit, but the ultimate goal is positive and that's why that's not a big deal. I wonder if that played itself out today during the game. Were there moments when you and LeBron were disagreeing about something that was going on?

ANTHONY DAVIS: Like I said, we just try to both hold each other accountable. We both want to be great. We both want to dominate the game. We had some blown coverages on the defensive end and we were both frustrated that we had multiple coverages that were blown tonight. It was just all piling up and we just kind of had that moment, put it behind us and kept playing.

Like I said, it's not always going to be pretty. It always seem like everything is good with me and him, and we do have our times where we do yell at each other and we do argue, but we know it's coming from a good place, so we get over it quickly and move on to the next play. We are just two guys that really want to win and have a love for the game.

Q. Miami is trying to keep you out of the paint. What does it take discipline-wise to not just take the threes against the way they are trying to play?

ANTHONY DAVIS: It's tough because we are open a lot. They want you to shoot the three, and our shooters were a little bit off tonight. But we hit some big threes to kind of keep that lead. We are doing a good job of getting in the teeth of the zone and finding guys. We're going to continue to encourage our guys to shoot those shots. If you're open, there should be no hesitation whether you should shoot the three or not, no matter if you're 0-for-10 or 0-for-whatever. You want you to keep shooting because we know those shots are going to fall for us. When we get it in the middle of the zone -- this team likes to run zone, so when we get in the middle, it's about making the right read. Myself, Bron and Rondo, we're usually in the middle of the zone and we're either going to find out shooters or have layups or find a guy that's going baseline to baseline.

So when we get in the middle, it kind of open things up for us. It really opens up when our guys are making shots. We are going to continue to encourage the guys to shoot, whether you miss four or five in a row. We have to make them honor that shot, and they are going to fall for us.