Anthony Davis returned to the floor for the Mavericks on Friday after missing 14 games, and despite being on a minutes restriction, he ended up playing slightly more than planned.
As Tim MacMahon of ESPN notes, the outing also carried extra weight: it was Davis’ first time facing the Lakers since the blockbuster February trade that sent Luka Doncic to Los Angeles and brought Davis to Dallas.
The Lakers doubled him immediately and often, and the player closed the night with 12 points, five rebounds, five assists and three blocks in 28 minutes.
Head coach Jason Kidd said he liked what he saw from the star big man in his return.
“I thought he was good for his first game back,” Kidd said, via Grant Afseth of Dallas Hoops Journal. “We’ll try to get the rhythm and try to get the flow of just being with those guys on the floor. I thought he was good on both ends. As we go forward and continue, as we talked about, to stacking good minutes, he did that.”
Dallas ultimately dropped the game by 10 points, falling to 5–15 – the second-worst record in the Western Conference. Even so, Davis said after the game that he still believes there’s room for a turnaround if the Mavericks keep competing.
“We’re still playing basketball, we’re trying to compete,” Davis said. “We are competing, we’re playing for each other, and we’re playing together. I remember when Brooklyn started off 5-20 and ended up at the four seed. I’m not saying we’re comparing ourselves to that or that we’re going to start off 5-20, but we just have to keep competing. There were just a couple of plays here and there that hurt us, but we can’t complain, we keep fighting. I feel like we’re right there.”
Anthony Davis is confident the Mavs still have time to turn their season around. Story: https://t.co/N7IkowgWbO
— Hoops Rumors (@HoopsRumors) November 30, 2025
