Midway through a tight fourth quarter in the Lakers’ comeback win over Sacramento Tuesday, head coach Byron Scott prepared to reinsert his starting power forward, Ed Davis, to close out the game. But someone stopped him — Davis himself.
Davis noticed the current lineup was clicking with Carlos Boozer at the four-position, and he let Scott know that he was willing to sacrifice his minutes to keep the momentum pushing forward.
“When I was going to check in at the six-minute mark — I think maybe the timeout was coming up — (but) it didn’t come,” Davis said. “We went five or six trips down the court. We were scoring, getting stops, so I didn’t want to break the rhythm. Our guys were rolling, so I just wanted them to play it out so we can get the win.”
Davis, who replaced Boozer in the starting five two games ago, had a strong game himself, going 5-for-5 for 11 points with six rebounds.
But Boozer, who had 15 points and nine rebounds, had the team’s offense flowing. The 13-year-veteran had only one assist, but he spread the ball around with 43 passes, two fewer than point guard Ronnie Price, who led the team. With Boozer on the floor, L.A. had its best offensive rating* (109.0).
Though Scott listed defense as one of the chief reasons for taking Boozer out of the starting lineup, he was on the floor for all but 15 seconds of the fourth quarter, in which the Lakers held Sacramento to just 14 points on 29.4 percent shooting.
“I was happy to be out there. That’s what every player wants to do,” Boozer said. “They want to be out there to help us win. I’m not different. I want to be out there to help us win, and I was glad I was able to do so last night. Hopefully we can keep that going.”
Moving forward, Scott will not have a set lineup to finish games with. Like on Tuesday, he plans to simply go with whomever gives the team its best chance at winning.
“It’s going to be more of a ‘feel’ thing,” Scott said. “At that particular time, I was going to bring Ed in for a few minutes, because the only thing I was worried about is if they start wanting to foul him. So I was going to keep Booze in for that. But it’s going to be more of a ‘feel’ thing. Whoever’s playing well at that particular time.”
*Offensive rating is an estimation of the number of points a team scores with a player on the floor per 100 possessions.