Anthony Davis’ foot injury adds to the Lakers’ woes in the Detroit loss

DETROIT — WhatWill it matter for the Los Angeles Lakers if Anthony Davis misses time with a foot injury?

LeBron James, sitting in front of his locker after another disappointing Lakers loss, balked at the postgame question.

“I don’t play the ‘if’ game,” James said. “We’ll go by what AD says and see how he feels over the next few days and go from there. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know (the impact) if AD is in or out. Come on.”

For much of the Lakers’ 115-103 loss to the Detroit Pistons at Little Caesars Arena on Monday, the biggest concern was that their 25th-ranked defense was lit up by the Pistons’ perimeter scoring. But then Davis hurt his left foot with 4:46 left in the game after planting to catch a pass from James before scoring inside.

Twenty seconds later, the Lakers called timeout and Davis crumpled to the floor in agony. He needed D’Angelo Russell and his coach, Jon Ishop, to help him get back on his feet. Davis carefully walked to the basket support and stretched before hobbled to the cluster. He played the rest of the game, including scoring an alley-oop lay-in, but grimaced and limped the rest of the way. He finished with 37 points and nine rebounds in 39 minutes.

The loss dropped the Lakers to 4-3 overall and 1-3 on their five-game road trip. Now Los Angeles could be without its best player Wednesday in Memphis — and possibly longer.

“I don’t know,” Davis said when asked if he would miss time. “I mean, I’m going to talk to my coach and just find out exactly what’s going on. I’ve been managing it since the summer, honestly, and my goal every game is to be on the floor. And I landed right on that place that killed me. So we’ll find out.”

The impact of Davis’ potential absence is obvious: the Lakers’ front line would be decimated. Their already porous defenses would leak even worse. And their sixth-ranked offense would take a step back after losing the league’s leading scorer and their most-used player.

Los Angeles barely has enough bodies: Jaxson Hayes is currently the only backup center available. (The NBA has reopened a 2021 domestic violence investigation into Hayes after a video recently surfaced from TMZ. Hayes said Monday that “me and my team are working to work with the league on all of that. I don’t have any other comment on that right now.”)

Christian Wood remains out after offseason knee surgery. Two-way big Christian Koloko is with the South Bay Lakers of the G League as he increases his conditioning after being cleared by the NBA return-to-play program. Jarred Vanderbilt, who isn’t a center but is at least another elite defensive player, is still at least a week out from double foot surgeries last season.

Two-way big Armel Traoré could be called upon for a backup center role. Or the Lakers could do as they have done in the past and play James and/or Rui Hachimura at backup center in small-ball lineups. Neither option is ideal.

Of course, Davis hasn’t been ruled out (at least not yet). But even if he’s fine and can play in the road trip finals in Memphis, the Lakers have defensive issues that he hasn’t been able to solve yet.

Los Angeles is on a roll after its 3-0 start. The Lakers have lost three of four games and have been thoroughly outplayed for large stretches of all of them, including being outscored 141-108 in the second half of their Toronto Raptors win and the first half of the Pistons loss.

“We’re all disappointed,” coach JJ Redick said.

Before each game, Redick has a top line item that he highlights with his group for the upcoming matchup.

For consecutive games, the coaching staff has emphasized the transition defense, which was ranked No. 30 entering Monday and was a driving force behind bottom-six defensive ratings.

But with the way the Lakers defended for most of the loss, it doesn’t look like they’ll be climbing out of the bottom four in defensive rankings anytime soon.

At times, the Lakers and Pistons seemed to play different sports. The Pistons were faster and more athletic, and that combination proved problematic for a Lakers team that is at a relative disadvantage in those categories against most opponents.

Detroit scored 12 of its 14 fast break points in the first half as it took a 67-53 lead into halftime. However, the Lakers locked in defensively in the second half, holding the Pistons to 48 points and just two fast break points as they got within six points a couple of times. However, it was too little, too late. They didn’t appear for another first half after being run off the floor in Cleveland last Wednesday.

Another first-half slump and a road trip that has gone off the rails, among others, has Davis questioning what kind of team the Lakers really are.

“We’re just two different teams right now,” Davis said. “One game, we’re this team that showed it can be one of the better teams in the league. Then the next, we’re this team that — I don’t even know who we are. So we’re just going to get better.…

“We have to put a full 48 (minutes) together and we can’t keep doing this if we expect to do anything this season.”

The problem for the Lakers as they try to regroup this week is that they have looked their best this season, with Davis dominating the interior on both ends of the floor. If he misses any time, they are in trouble.

(Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)