First Quarter
Alex Len scores the first bucket of the game. He follows up with another score soon and has 4 points on 2-2 shooting, while the rest of the Suns start 0-7.
Meanwhile, Ronnie Price--yes, former Sun Ronnie Price--is shredding the Suns defense and has 8 points and 2 assists in 7 minutes to push the Lakers to a 12-5 lead. Could this really turn into the Ronnie Price revenge game?
Suns score a couple buckets to cut LA's lead. The back-and-forth battle continues through the rest of the quarter and the Suns can't quite hit a groove to take a lead on the Lakers.
At the end of the first, LA leads 28-26.
Second Quarter
The Duke Duo of Miles Plumlee and Shavlik Randolph start the second quarter together along with Isaiah Thomas, Gerald Green and Marcus Morris. The Suns take a one point lead after a pair of Gerald Green free throws but then LA gets Swaggy wit it and takes a 40-35 lead as Nick Young starts heating up.
Nick Young soon hits another contested three as LA takes a 45-37 lead. A few buckets later, the Suns call timeout down by 6 as Jeremy Lin and Nick Young have already combined for 19 points with 5 minutes left in the second quarter. Phoenix's defense has not been strong.
Kobe checks back in and promptly throws a pass right to Bledsoe...who blows an open fastbreak layup. I'm just going to assume he was distracted by the swag of Nick Young, who was trailing him in transition.
Isaiah Thomas has kept this game from getting out of reach and has matched Swaggy P with 12 points of his own off the bench. Dragic soon checks in and the HYDRA are on the floor for the last couple minutes of the half. After a Lakers turnover, Isaiah Thomas lobs a touchdown pass to Bledsoe, who lays it in for his first bucket of the game.
The half ends with a Suns fastbreak leading Isaiah passing to Dragic for a three at the buzzer! Unfortunately, the review shows the ball was still Gorans' hands as the clock hit zero so it won't count and the Suns head into halftime down by one: 56-55.
Thomas played the most minutes of any Suns player in the half and leads them in scoring with 13. Dragic added 12 in 14 minutes, while Bledsoe only had 2 points on 1-7 shooting but pitched in 7 rebounds and 6 assists.
Lakers shot the ball extremely well in the first half (50% FG, 6-9 on threes) so a one point deficit look quite good, all things considered.
Third Quarter
Kobe starts the half with a make. He's now 2-5 from the field. Eric Bledsoe soon afterwards gets a steal and makes sure not to blow the easy score by slamming it in. After Alex Len blocks Kobe on the next possession, Bledsoe hits two free throws.
After a few back-and-forth sequences, the Suns defense tightens up and forces some bad shots and turnovers and suddenly, Phoenix is up 4 after an Alex Len fastbreak slam.
At the first timeout of the quarter, the Suns are up 75-71. Goran Dragic has 19 points, while Bledsoe is up to 10 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists. Goran should probably be a little cautious when he's grabbing rebounds around Bledsoe tonight. #TripleDoubleWatch
Eric Bledsoe continues his strong third quarter and has 11 points on 4-6 shooting from the field in the period 2:41 to go before the fourth. And then he hits a three. 14 in the 3rd.
Lakers switch to a zone defense and it still doesn't matter. Bledsoe hits another jumpshot.
The third quarter ends with the Suns up 88-81.
Fourth Quarter
Suns open the fourth quarter with back-to-back threes from Dragic and Green and are suddenly up 13.
With the shot clock running out, Gerald Green just pulled up from Temecula. He missed. At the first timeout of the quarter, the Suns are up 98-85.
With about 7 minutes left in the game, Gerald tried to dunk all over the Lakers but missed, which led to a fastbreak layup for LA. Hornacek calls a timeout with the Suns' lead suddenly down to 7. Marcus Morris picks up a technical and after a Swaggy free throw, Suns are only up 6.
After a Jeremy Lin three pointer a couple minutes later, the Suns are only up 3...until Lensanity slams in an Eric Bledsoe miss, Markieff Morris converts a and-one, and PJ Tucker hits a jumper to put Phoenix back up 106-97.
Wes Johnson then makes a three for LA to cut the lead to 6. Then he makes ANOTHER three--the Lakers are 12-18 from three at this point.
After a timeout, Isaiah Thomas checks in for Alex Len. Not sure why Thomas has only played 6 minutes this half after a strong first half...
Nick Young converts two free throws after a Suns miss and the Lakers are only down by one.
PJ Tucker hits a tough layup to put the Suns back up by three and then the Lakers somehow manage to actually miss one of their three point attempts. Markieff Morris soon backs down Nick Young and hits a shot off the glass with 49 seconds left. Suns up 5.
After a Lakers timeout, Kobe passes to Wes Johnson, who misses a three. Thomas grabs the rebound, gets fouled and hits the free throws. And that's essentially the game.
After a few more free throws, Suns win 116-107. Not a great defensive performance but when you're on the road and the home team puts on a shooting performance like the Lakers did tonight, you take it.
Highlights:
HYDRA aka Point Guardians of the Galaxy aka Backcourt 3000 combines for 61 points, 14 assists and 13 assists.
Markieff Morris aka Chief Kieff had 12 quiet points and pulled down 7 rebounds and was quite clutch for the Suns. PJ Tucker aka Bad Ass Mother Tucker also chipped in 12 points and played some great defense on Kobe (the Black Mamba only had 10 points on 4-10 shooting).
Alex Len aka The Ukranian Axe tallied 8 points, 8 rebounds and 2 blocks in 25 minutes, while Miles Plumlee aka Professor Plumbledore added 6 points and 6 rebounds in 20 minutes off the bench.