Lakers fall to Suns for 1st loss of season

PHOENIX — Despite strong performances from Anthony Davis, Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura, the Lakers dropped their first game of the season to the Suns, falling 109-105 on Monday night at Footprint Center to kick off their five-game trip.

Davis’ 30-point streak to start the season ended at three games. He finished with 29 points (12-of-24 shooting), 15 rebounds, three assists and three blocked shots.

Hachimura finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Reaves scored 23 points (8-for-15 shooting), including 17 in the second half, to go with eight rebounds and three assists.

But with the Lakers trailing 107-104 with 37 seconds left after Davis blocked a Devin Booker jumper that would have put the Suns ahead by five, Reaves missed a potential game-tying open 3-pointer out of a timeout with Booker (game-high 33 points) grabbing the rebound.

“It was a great look, it just didn’t go,” Reaves said. “You wish you could have those back. I’ve been thinking about it ever since the game ended. If I make that shot, a tie game, maybe we get a stop and we get a bucket.

“But, [there are] many possessions in the game where could have [done] something better. Execution was really good. Got the look that we wanted. I just didn’t make the shot. But, I’m going to shoot that every time and live with the results.”

The Lakers got another stop while still down 107-104 with eight seconds left, but the Suns intentionally fouled LeBron James, who struggled offensively for most of the game, to prevent him from attempting a potential game-tying 3-point shot.

James made the first free throw and intentionally missed the second. But the Lakers didn’t grab the offensive rebound and Bradley Beal (15 points) sealed the game with a pair of free throws, putting the Lakers at 3-1 on the season.

“I missed it on purpose to try to get the offensive rebound,” said James, who was noticeably under the weather and had been since Friday. “We had no more timeouts and didn’t come away with it.”

Kevin Durant had 30 points for the Suns.

“We said we wanted to be a process team – I liked our process,” Coach JJ Redick said. “I liked the way we started the game. I liked our level of competition to compete on the defensive end. They put you in a lot of tough spots. I have to go watch it, but it felt like, in some ways, we lost to Kevin Durant and Devin Booker’s ability to make tough 2s.”

Booker scored nine fourth-quarter points while Durant scored eight in the quarter, which the Suns won 33-22. All of Durant’s fourth-quarter points came within a two-minute stretch: a fadeaway jumper over Reaves to put Phoenix up 99-98 with 4:04 left; a pair of free throws to give the Suns a 101-100 lead; a 16-footer over Gabe Vincent after drawing the switch to put the Suns ahead 103-101 with three minutes left; and a 7-footer over Vincent and Hachimurua to give the Suns a 105-101 lead with 2:17 left.

“If there’s one thing to nitpick, it’s probably me,” Redick said. “I probably should have gone to the ‘fire’ [blitzing on defense] a possession or two earlier against KD. But I liked that group that we had out there defensively. I trust those guys.”

James was held to 11 points on 3-of-14 shooting, extending his record streak of double-digit scoring performances to 1,226 games but not doing so until late in the fourth when he knocked down a 3-pointer to cut the Lakers’ deficit to 105-104 with 1:58 left in the game.

“I would say for him and our group, we missed a lot of paint 2s,” Redick said.

The Lakers shot just 21 for 50 inside the paint, with James, who shot 67.3% inside the paint last season, going 0 for 5.

Redick added: “For [James], those are shots that he makes. In the fourth, he had that miss on the lefty lay. Missed a couple of those one-leggers that were right there in the paint. We gave him the space. They were very intentional about flooding when he was on that iso on either wing. So it’s something we probably need to talk about about how we want to combat that against teams that do that.”

In a reversal from their game Friday night in Los Angeles, which the Lakers won 123-116 after erasing a 22-point, second-quarter deficit, the Lakers took a significant lead early.

The Lakers opened an 18-point advantage (26-8) midway through the first quarter and had a 31-15 advantage later in the period behind strong offensive play from Davis, hustle and taking advantage of the Suns’ slow offensive start.

Davis had 16 first-quarter points in nine minutes, with the Lakers also scoring seven second-chance points and getting easy baskets in transition.

But the Suns turned up their defensive intensity.

And the Lakers’ start-of-second and start-of-fourth quarter lineups, which have been an early bright spot, struggled in their minutes without Davis on the floor.

The Suns outscored the Lakers 17-4 in the seven minutes Davis sat between the first and second quarters, helping Phoenix take a 50-48 lead into halftime. The Suns outscored the Lakers 25-14 in the second, a quarter in which the Lakers only shot 27.3% (6 for 22) from the field.

“We should never have a 14-point quarter,” Redick said. “That’s on me as well. Part of that is me. I gotta make sure we’re running good offense. I felt like it was a little random. We got stalled out. We talked about it at halftime: for us to be a high-level offense, we gotta move bodies and we gotta move the ball. They gotta screen. They just kinda took us out of what we were doing initially and we were great in the second half. We executed great in the second half. It’s just that second quarter really hurt us.”

Reaves, Hachimura and D’Angelo Russell (14 points, eight assists) each scored eight third-quarter points, helping the Lakers win the quarter 35-26 and take an 83-76 lead into the fourth.

The Lakers’ start-of-fourth lineup struggled, allowing the Suns to open the quarter on a 14-3 run to take a 90-86 lead and helping them come away with the win.

The Lakers will continue their five-game trip against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday.

“Got to go in and try to not lose two in a row,” Davis said. “The mentality for us all year is to never lose two in a row.”

Originally Published: October 28, 2024 at 10:11 PM PDT