NEW YORK — Anthony Davis spread his arms wide, his brow focused directly on James Harden as the Nets guard bounced from left to right.
Without overreacting to Harden’s fakes, Davis stayed engaged, extending an arm to force Harden into a miss. Russell Westbrook skied for the rebound, pounding it off the Barclays Center court as he accelerated up the floor.
With a single motion, Westbrook whipped a one-handed bounce pass to LeBron James, who glided through the paint against the helpless Brooklyn defense for two points.
This was the plan all along. And the Lakers, for the first time in more than a month, finally got to see it executed in somewhere other than their hopeful imaginations.
Davis returned to action against the Nets after missing the previous 17 games, the Lakers getting back one of their most important players in a 106-96 win against the short-handed Nets.
But Davis wasn’t the most important.
James, who scored at least 25 points in each of the games Davis missed with his injured knee, made good on his promise to keep going even when the Lakers got their big man back.
He stepped into passing lanes on back-to-back plays in the fourth quarter for breakaway highlight dunks, the showiest moments of another efficient 14-for-21 shooting night.
Brooklyn, missing the injured Kevin Durant and the unvaccinated Kyrie Irving, got 33 points, seven rebounds and six assists from Harden in a dominant performance.
“LeBron feels good,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said pregame. “… I don’t feel like there’s a need for him to exhale now and change what he’s been doing.”
He didn’t — back-to-back jumpers pushing away Brooklyn the one time the Nets threatened in the second half.
Davis scored on his first two shots (including a dunk on the game’s opening possession), but foul trouble quickly knocked him out of rhythm and limited him to eight points in 25 minutes. Westbrook rallied after a slow first half — his turnovers were almost always met with points on the other end — but he was still too uneven, finishing with 15 points on 7-for-14 shooting.
But the Lakers didn’t need to be that close to perfect, not against these Nets and not with James playing this well. And on the nights when they need to, at least they got a glimpse of what they might be able to accomplish.
