James put on a masterful shooting performance down the stretch, scoring 15 of the Lakers' first 19 points in the final period and getting the assists on his teammates' other two baskets as Los Angeles pulled ahead. “The In-Season Tournament is what it is, and we have an opportunity to play on a big stage, be on national television, represent our families, our communities, where we come from.” “You’ve got some of the most alpha male competitors in the world, and if you give us an opportunity to play for something meaningful or an incentive, then you get what you’re getting,” said James, who also racked up 11 assists, eight rebounds and five steals. Milwaukee plays Indiana in the East semifinal. He Suns could realistically look at this contest as an adjustment game, look to win Game 2 and go back to Phoenix with home court advantage stolen.īut they need to tighten up and play with a little more fire in the face of an energized Nuggets team.LOS ANGELES - LeBron James scored 15 of his 31 points in the fourth quarter, and the Los Angeles Lakers secured the last semifinal spot in the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament with a 106-103 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night.Īnthony Davis had 27 points and 15 rebounds and Austin Reaves scored 20 for the top-seeded Lakers, who will face New Orleans on Thursday in Las Vegas. The Suns walked through a Game one defeat last round, and hear we are.T Falling behind 1-0 isn’t like falling behind 3-2. Nikola Jokic didn’t even really play as well as he’s capable of, but he still had 24 points and 19 rebounds. The Nuggets were lead by Jamal Murray with 34 points, but Gordon’s 23 points on 9/13 shooting somehow felt like the single biggest contributor to their success. Will that change going forward? Something to watch. Head coach Monty Williams continues to like Landry Shamet and not like TJ Warren. The bench didn’t really do anything of note, unfortunately.

0JFxZsIxvh- Phoenix Suns April 30, 2023ĭevin Booker likewise was pretty good on paper, he had 27 points. He had 7 turnovers, but he was hyperefficient on offense with 29 points and had 14 rebounds. Kevin Durant had a good game for the Suns.

That’s just hard to overcome most of the time, when your opponent is that efficient on offense and you just are not. That just isn’t going to get it done most nights in the NBA in this day and age. The Suns were just 7/23 from downtown in this one. The three point discrepency REALLY jumps. As a guy who moved from Phoenix to Denver himself, I don’t personally think it’s as big a deal as people make it out to be, but hey, maybe there’s something to it at least. Some people like to blame Denver’s elevation for games like this. At times it felt like the game was crying out for the Suns to slow the game down and try to create more of an iso contest (as much as some people hate that), but it didn’t happen. They mostly just played very flat and uninspired basketball in this one outside of a few bright spots. This is not to absolve the Suns of responsibility for not playing well. The Denver club simply couldn’t seem to miss, particularly Aaron Gordon, who I think played litrally about as well as he is physically, cosmically capable of playing. Seriously, there isn’t a ton I can say about this game that isn’t overshadowed by that second frame, when the Nuggets outscored the Suns 37-19. Such was the case Saturday night, when the Phoenix Suns played a second quarter against basically the most charmed possible version of the Denver Nuggets. Sometimes the story of a game is written in a fairly short amount of time.

Suns nuggets recap