Giannis shows major respect to LeBron after Lakers-Bucks battle: ‘It’s always great playing against the best’

LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers earned arguably their biggest win of the 2022-23 NBA season so far on Friday, and Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo made sure to pay some respect following the game.

The Lakers beat the Bucks in a 133-129 battle, and Antetokounmpo celebrated “playing against the best” in a tweet shortly following the contest.

Though Antetokounmpo made sure to show his respect for James, it was someone else who had the most impressive performance of the night.

Lakers big man Anthony Davis was the star of the show, and he is absolutely making a case to be mentioned in the MVP conversation. In Friday’s game, he impressed in a massive way once again by dropping 44 points and grabbing 10 rebounds in 40 minutes of playing time.

Though Davis has looked like a beast in recent weeks, Friday’s outing may have been his best of the season thus far, at least from an offensive perspective.

He shot the ball incredibly well, going 18-for-27 from the field and 2-for-3 from deep.

Davis’ improvement from the 3-point line lately is massive news for the Lakers. Though the big man doesn’t shoot the ball a lot from deep, defenses knowing that they have to respect his ability to do so opens things up offensively for the Lakers in a big way.

Just because Davis put in a masterful game on Friday does not mean that the other stars in the game disappointed. In fact, virtually everyone came to play, which is partially why the Lakers win was so exciting.

James looked like his old self and filled up the stat sheet with a near-triple-double of 28 points, 11 assists and eight boards.

Antetokounmpo did all he could to get his team a win as well, finishing with 40 points, seven rebounds and five assists.

The win definitely puts an exclamation point on what has been a really exciting few weeks for the Lakers. After a poor start to the season, L.A. has gone 7-2 over its last nine games.

Though the Lakers are still just 9-12 on the season, they are just three games back of the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference. It’s an indication of just how open the league is this year.

L.A. has several road games coming up and will look to keep things rolling. While it seemed nearly impossible just a few short weeks ago, the Lakers are knocking on the door of being back to .500 on the season.