The Phoenix Suns got embarrassed by the Houston Rockets on national television Thursday night. They gave up 90 points by halftime and weren’t about to let that kind of thing happen again.
On Friday night, the Lakers were victims of the Suns’ best shot with a 122-113 victory at Staples Center. The Lakers fell to 6-10 while the Suns improved to 6-11.
“For whatever reason, even though we mentioned it, we didn’t think they were going to come out and play that hard, play that well,” Lakers coach Luke Walton said. “A great teaching moment and learning moment for our guys. Everybody in the NBA is good. Just because we beat a team twice doesn’t mean we’re better than they are.”
Devin Booker led Phoenix with 33 points on 13-of-26 shooting while Kyle Kuzma led the Lakers with a career-high 30 points.
Kuzma’s points were the most by a rookie this season; the previous high was Lonzo Ball’s 29 points against the Suns in October in the second game of the season. Kuzma’s six games of 20 or more points rank first among NBA rookies this season.
Although the Lakers shot nearly 50%, they also turned the ball over 19 times, giving up 14 points.
“Just careless with the ball,” said Ball, who had six points, six assists, six rebounds and five steals, making three of seven shots. “A lot of those came in transition, which is a double negative because that’s a scoring opportunity and we gave the ball right back to them. Just gotta be smarter with the ball.”
The Lakers trailed by one point after one quarter, then Phoenix began to pull away late in the second with the help of a 16-5 run to close the quarter.by http://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/la-sp-lakers-suns-20171117-story.html
Booker hit a 30-foot three-pointer at the end of the second quarter to put the Suns up 65-53.