The defending NBA champions haven't returned to full strength yet, but an integral part of the Los Angeles Lakers' offense is back in the lineup, and he's ready to help the team restore some consistency heading into the playoffs.
All-Star forward Anthony Davis, who missed nearly nine weeks and 33 total games while recovering from a calf strain and Achilles tendinosis in his right leg, started for the Lakers on Thursday night in Dallas, scoring four points on 2-of-10 shooting with four rebounds in just 17 minutes of action. As a precautionary measure, Davis didn't play the second half, and the team ultimately lost to the Mavericks, 115-110.
With 13 games remaining in the shortened regular season, the fifth-seeded Lakers (35-24) are three-and-a-half games out of owning home-court advantage in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs. And to make matters more interesting, Dallas -- which currently owns the seventh-seed and a spot in the new play-in tournament -- trails Los Angeles by just two games in the loss column, and the teams will face each other again on Saturday night at American Airlines Center.
NBC Sports Los Angeles reporter Michael Duarte joined After Hours with Amy Lawrence on Friday to discuss Davis' return, and how the Lakers will manage his playing time in the coming days and weeks.
"The Lakers would love to just throw him in and play 30-40 minutes a game. Unfortunately, when you're dealing with an Achilles injury like what Anthony Davis has, and you're talking about the calf muscle -- all the way down to the Achilles, down to the foot, to the plantar fascia -- all of that is connected," Duarte said. "And so, when you injure one and you have to do the full 10 weeks to heal the muscles in there -- which is what Anthony Davis has done at this point, we're in Week 10 now -- you have to do a very, very slow ramp-up. Because in basketball, especially, there's a lot of force when you explode off of that heel, foot, and Achilles to the calf -- whenever you jump.
"We saw with [Nets forward] Kevin Durant in the 2019 Finals when you push back off of it, you need to have the strength in the muscle, in addition to the healing, in order for it to do what you want it to do and take on that force. So, what we've been told by talking to doctors and trainers is that he needs the slow ramp-up. You saw the 17 minutes today, they're thinking that might be the same case on Saturday. But he could start then to go to 20 minutes a game, 25, 30, until ultimately he's good. So right now, it's just how he responds, how that calf and Achilles respond to the minutes and game action he's getting.
"And, talking to the Lakers players after the game in the locker room, having Anthony Davis in the locker room before the game -- putting on his jersey, putting on his shoes there with him -- it gave everybody in that locker room this excitement that, 'Ok, AD's back, LeBron's coming back,' and everyone's getting really excited for this now. So, even though it's going to take some time for AD's calf and Achilles to get the strength back to play a full 30-40 minutes, they know that, as LeBron put on his Instagram, 'The storm is coming,' and they're excited for it."
As for the injury status of Lakers star LeBron James, who's missed the last 17 games with a high right ankle sprain, Duarte believes the 36-year-old veteran and team's leading scorer will return to the floor during the first week of May.
The entire Los Angeles sports conversation between Duarte and Lawrence can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow After Hours With Amy Lawrence on Twitter @ALawRadio and @AfterHoursCBS, and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.