On Friday evening, Anthony Davis and the Los Angeles Lakers had a chance to extend their winning streak to five games when they hit the floor in Indianapolis to take on Tyrese Haliburton and the Pacers, a team they defeated earlier this month back at the Crypto.com Arena. A win would have been huge for Davis and his squad, as the Suns lost again on Friday, meaning that the Lakers had an opportunity to gain even more ground in the vaunted Western Conference playoff picture depending on the result of the contest.

Instead, the Lakers came out flat and fell behind early, and were never able to fully establish control of this one, as the Pacers won in comfortable fashion in front of their home (and some Los Angeles) fans. Davis had one of his quieter performances of the season in this one, looking visibly fatigued and injured at certain points throughout the evening, causing some fans to wonder whether the talented power forward may still be feeling the knee injury that has bothered him at certain points this season.

Davis himself seemed to acknowledge that at least some pain still exists during his postgame press conference.

“I'll be better in a couple days, it's nothing serious. I felt like I could play through, it's not something I plan to miss more games for or play on a minutes restriction,” said Davis, per Lakers Nation on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter.

Meanwhile, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham also acknowledged the injury during his presser.

“You could tell he was running a little gingerly. It got better in the second half,” said Ham, per Lakers Nation.

A highly important stretch for the Lakers

As previously mentioned, the Lakers are currently in a race to get as high in the Western Conference playoff picture as they possibly can before the postseason gets underway in a couple of weeks. Los Angeles currently sits in ninth place, and would be slated to take on Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors in a “win or go home” situation if the season ended today, after which they would have to win yet another Play-In game, just to get a shot at most likely the Denver Nuggets in the first round, a team that the Lakers haven't beaten in over a full year.

There is still hope that Los Angeles could get as high as the upper half of the Play-In picture, meaning they would have to win just one of those games as opposed to two, and would not be facing elimination that night. That was the situation the Lakers found themselves in last year, when they hosted the Minnesota Timberwolves and defeated them before going on a surprise run all the way to the Western Conference Finals.

With games against the Brooklyn Nets, Toronto Raptors, and Washington Wizarsd coming up, the Lakers would certainly behoove themselves to finish out this east coast swing with a string of three straight victories.