That’s what a team is for and obviously, you can’t replace AD – LeBron James

Los Angeles Lakers talisman Anthony Davis had to leave the floor during the first half of Tuesday night’s 116-102 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers with flu-like symptoms and did not return to action, which was a big blow for the team.

Davis has been in exemplary form in recent times and he was deeply missed. The team’s head coach Darvin Ham revealed Davis was having a temperature of more than 100. According to the team, it’s non-Covid-19 illness.

“It progressively got worse,” Ham said of Davis’ sickness. “His temperature went over a 100, I believe it was 101 and some change. He said he was going to try and give it a go, which he did. But he just felt too weak, just too drained — dehydrated a little bit. But it’s that time of the season, in terms of wintertime, weather change, change of climate — coming from L.A. going to these different places.”

On the other hand, LeBron James had 21 points but it was not enough and the Lakers definitely missed the services of Anthony Davis. James added every player will have to step up if Davis misses the next few matches due to illness.

James said, “Next man up. But that’s a tall task. Figuratively and literally for what AD has been doing for us over the last few weeks. I thought Thomas came in and gave us some great minutes. It was high energy, worked the glass really well.

“But it was tough for us. AD went out and we had to kind of switch up our whole game plan for what we were going to try do. But we gave as much as we could. Had a couple of opportunities in the fourth but they broke away with it.”

“That’s what a team is for and obviously you can’t replace AD so everyone has to do a little bit more. But do their job at the highest level and highest capacity they can do it and live with the results.”

The Lakers will next take on Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night.