Anthony Davis puts pressure on a Lakers teammate, is not LeBron James

The Lakers won their last game vs. New Orleans and Hachimura was of big help guarding players like Zion and Ingram

It seems that the LA Lakers are ready to trend in the right direction as they have won 3 games of their last four with two strong rivals like the Boston Celtics and the NY Knicks. In their last game, the group got an impressive win over the New Orleans Pelicans.

For the first time in the season, the team looked outstanding with their offensive game, as all five starting lineups scored 20 or more points and helped get the win for a score of 139-122. Anthony Davis spoke on the great job of Rui Hachimura on both ends of the court.

“Yeah, he’s taking on the challenge,” Davis said of Hachimura. “We put a lot of pressure on Rui to guard. Tonight he had Zion and BI, two scorers. Like you said, it’s a team defense, it’s not just on one guy, we don’t leave one guy on an island. But we’ve had matchups all year where we put him on the opposing team’s best wing player and he’s been good.

He’s improved. He’s more than capable of playing defense and giving us what he gave tonight on the offensive end. Anytime we have an assignment that we feel he can guard, we’ll put it on him and make sure that we help him on the backside.”

Rui Hachimura needs to step up because the Lakers' injury problems

With defensive personnel lacking due to injuries, Hachimura is stepping into the challenge of guarding some of the best wings and bigs in the league. Due to his frame, he can stay with these scoring threats, and it is good to see that he is embracing that challenge.