The Suns faced the Lakers tonight at the Crypto.com Arena on the second night of back-to-back games for both sides. They beat the Lakers 125-108 to prevent their consecutive previous losses from becoming a losing streak.
Unfortunately for the Suns, Devin Booker suffered a significant setback towards the end of the first half as he injured his right groin after playing just 10 minutes tonight. Subsequently, he went to the locker room and did not return for the rest of the game. His recovery time could be a few weeks or a few months depending on the severity of the injury.
He finished the night with 11 points, two rebounds and three assists, while shooting 57.1% from the field. Booker was their primary scoring option throughout the season and now joins Jalen Green on the injury list for the Suns. So far, he averaged 25.7 points, 4.4 rebounds and 6.9 assists per game while shooting 45.5% from the field for the season.
Despite being short-handed already the Suns came out of top and dominated the Lakers in this game. With four minutes left in the game, JJ Redick seemingly waived the white flag as he benched all his starters when the Suns were up 118-100 at the time.
Robert Horry was right to warn the Lakers about Dillon Brooks who arguably became the leader for their team when Booker got sidelined due to injury. He finished the game leading all scorers for the Suns with 33 points. two rebounds, two assists, and one steal while shooting 57.7% from the field (15-of-26).
Luka Doncic had an extremely careless night despite stuffing the box score as well in a solid start to the game. From having 20 points in the first quarter, he nearly had a triple-double where one of the statistics were turnovers. The Slovenian star finished the game 38 points, 11 rebounds, five assists, and nine turnovers while shooting 15-of-26 from the field (57.7%).
Austin Reaves and LeBron James both struggled tonight to give any significant help to Luka Doncic. Reaves probably did not get as many looks as he would’ve like and had only 16 points, four rebounds and three assists while shooting 50% from the field in this game. Meanwhile James barely managed to keep his double-digit scoring streak alive and finished the game with just 10 points and three assists.
Their disruptive defense was the key difference maker for the Suns. Eight out of the nine players used in rotation for the Suns all had at least one steal in the game, showing all of them caused multiple turnovers in the game that resulted in a complete shift of momentum every time the Lakers tried to make a run.
The Suns have improved their record to 13-9 for the season. Meanwhile the Lakers have now snapped their seven-game win streak and fallen to a 15-5 record. The Suns are now headed to Houston to face the Rockets in their next game on Friday night (December 5) and the Lakers will visit the Raptors in Toronto on Thursday night (December 4).
