Update on the eye injury Anthony Davis suffered against the Warriors

The Los Angeles Lakers’ hopes of reaching the 2023-24 NBA playoffs look increasingly slim. Last night’s 121-128 defeat to the Golden State Warriors leaves Darvin Ham’s team (36-31) and way down the order in the Western Conference. To make matters worse, now they must wait to see how long they will be without Anthony Davis, who picked up an injury during the game.

The nine-time All-Star was hit in the left eye by Trayce Jackson-Davis with 2:47 left in the first quarter. According to Shams Charania’s report for The Athletic, Davis suffered a corneal abrasion after the hit by the Warriors center. The University of Kentucky graduate continued playing for a few minutes, but left the Crypto.com Arena court after accumulating eight points, four rebounds, two assists, a steal and a block in 12 minutes.

Lakers “missed AD big time”

Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters in his post-game press conference, “They missed Anthony big time. He’s such a great defender when he’s in the paint. His absence opened the paint for us and we went to the rim often in the second half”.

Lakers’ coach Darvin Ham explained afterwards, “He got an elbow to the eye, left eye. He wasn’’t able to see out of that left eye - vision blurred but he was looking at the doctors. They were working on him from the time he left the floor and went back to the training room, through half-time... so, the biggest thing is just making sure he’s okay and we’ll get an update on him pretty soon”.

Overall this year, Davis has been healthier than ever. Up until last night’s game, the center had played 63 of the Lakers’ 67 games and averaged 24.7 points, 12.4 rebounds and 3.6 assists with a field goal accuracy of 55.2 percent.

The team has not yet given a diagnosis on how long it will take for Davis to recover. The Lakers’ next game is next Monday 18 March at 10:30 p.m. ET against the Atlanta Hawks (29-37) at the Crypto.com Arena.