WORLD OF HURT
James scores 38 but increasingly short-handed Lakers fall to the Suns
LOS ANGELES » The longer the day went on, the worse it got for the suddenly injuryplagued Lakers.
They woke up Tuesday knowing Anthony Davis wouldn’t be available. Not long after lunch, they had lost Marc Gasol. Minutes before tip-off, a bruised heel was bad enough to keep Kyle Kuzma off the court. By the game’s end, Alex Caruso was dealing with neck spasms after taking a hard foul from Dario Saric and could not return.
Now the only Laker to start all 36 games, LeBron James scored 38 of the Lakers’ points but looked dead-legged by the finish of a 114-104 loss, the team’s fifth in their last seven games. He sauntered off after the buzzer, a king without his court.
One of his last plays was to force a shot from Chris Paul, who had only 8 points but 10 assists as the Suns crept up to the Lakers in the Western Conference standings — the Lakers (24-12) now have one more loss (23-11).
What sputtered at the end was offense. The jolt in the arm that Dennis Schröder (17 points) provided in two wins back from quarantine faded down the stretch, as the Lakers scored just 21 points in the final frame against the visitors they once drilled in twice in the preseason.
The next-best scorer was Talen-Horton Tucker, who had 16 points. The Suns had five scorers between 15 points and 21, led by Saric off the bench, who feasted inside and out on the Lakers’ diminished front court.
The game had the misfortune of becoming a referendum on refereeing. Three different reviews of fouls were conducted;
James and coach Frank Vogel were given technical fouls on the same play by official Tyler Ford. But official Justin Van Duyne stole the show in the third quarter by ejecting Devin Booker (17 points) for bouncing the ball at fellow ref Marc Davis. It was the most confusing moment of a game that oozed oddity.
But on defense, the biggest problem wasn’t guarding Phoenix’s size; The Lakers’ couldn’t stop the 3-pointer.
Role players including Jae Crowder, Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson started off red hot from deep. In the first half, the Suns were 10 for 17 from the perimeter — the last shot of the first a corner three by Bridges off a running bullet pass from Booker.
The Lakers started Montrezl Harrell but elected to play frontcourt by platoon. Harrell started out on the wrong foot on offense, struggling to find his typical shots against the expansive wingspans of Phoenix’s front court. So the Lakers went to Markieff Morris (12 points), who popped jumpers, and Jared Dudley, who held his ground defensively.
Though he took the court with a sore back, 10-day contract center Damian Jones helped guard the middle against the team that cut him less than a week before. On his first sequence checking in during the second half, he supplied a block and a lay-up to help the Lakers take a slim lead that they and the Suns batted back and forth.
James got a number of improbable shots to fall, including a wild reverse off the glass he threw up over Booker in the second quarter that had just enough English to spin into the rim. But again, the 3-pointers did not come easy, and in a 0 for 3 start, James airballed at least one of his attempts.
He wasn’t the only starter who struggled to strike true: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope missed his first five shots of the game before finally hitting a lay-up in the fourth quarter.