Anthony Davis refused to take the blame when the Lakers lost at Utah on Saturday. He was always willing to share the praise when things were going well.

That night, he said that everyone except him did their part to step up when LeBron James wasn’t playing. This made things even harder for the Lakers, who were already struggling to get into the top 10 in the West and at least be in a position to make the play-in round. He said, “We got to make a push,” emphasizing that how they play in their next few home games would have a big impact on the rest of the season.

Davis did not have to take the blame after that loss. On both ends of the court, he’s having a great season, and he’s been the Lakers’ best player all season, even when they’ve had team changes, injuries, confidence issues, and defensive problems.The way he wants to be there for us is very competitive. He wants to carry us around a lot. “He’s very hard on himself when he thinks he’s not doing that,” Darvin Ham, his coach, said. “But that’s what makes him who he is.”

It was great that Davis was ready to take blame for that loss. The Lakers play their first of six straight games at Crypto.com Arena on Monday against Oklahoma City. It was his answer. The Clippers play one of those games as the “road” team.

Davis scored a game-high 27 points, grabbed a game-high 15 rebounds, and added five assists and a block to give the Lakers the push they need right away. The Thunder lost 112-105, but their win was a good example of what they need to do going forward. With Taurean Prince, James, Davis, Austin Reaves, and D’Angelo Russell as starters, they had four players score in double figures, shot 52.4% from the field, and came back from being down six points early in the third quarter to take an eight-point lead by the end of it.

Ham said that the five will be their starting group for a while. His plan worked because of how they played on Monday, and it gave people hope that the Lakers can do even better as long as James (25 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists) and Davis stay healthy and backup players like Max Christie and Jarred Vanderbilt do their jobs.

Davis said after his eighth game this season with at least 25 points and at least 15 rebounds, “I think it starts with us on defense to make that push.” “We need to be a defensive-minded team. When we show what we can do on defense, we usually win those games.””I think we can score,” he said. “I believe it’s only on defense for us.” Can we play defense like we did tonight? We set ourselves up to win a lot of basketball games…The defense is what I think will set us apart and help us win more games.

As of 20-21, the Lakers had still lost more games than they had won by the middle of the season. They shouldn’t be there.

But they are still sure that they have the tools and players to make the kind of comeback that Davis talked about the other day. There’s also the trade market, which was used well by general manager Rob Pelinka to turn a struggling team into a powerhouse that made it to the West Finals last season.

“I enjoy what we’re doing.” Davis said, “I like what we did tonight.” “We need to keep going down this path.”

Davis needs to lead them with his two-way game and the humility that made him take the blame for Utah’s loss when he didn’t need to.