LeBron James leads Lakers to victory over Suns despite shin injury
LeBron James scored 32 points, grabbed 11 rebounds, and dished out 6 assists to lead the Los Angeles Lakers to a 122-119 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Friday night. The win was the Lakers’ first in the in-season tournament and snapped a three-game losing streak.
James suffered a shin injury in the first quarter when he was kneed by Kevin Durant, but he was able to return to the game and play effectively.
Cam Reddish added 17 points for the Lakers, and Austin Reaves had 15 points and 7 assists off the bench.
Durant led the Suns with 38 points, 9 rebounds, and 5 assists.
Lakers make lineup change:
Lakers coach Darvin Ham made a lineup change for the game, starting Reddish and bringing Reaves off the bench for the first time this season.
Ham said the move was made to “change up the music a little bit.”
“It wasn’t a demotion for Austin,” Ham said. “It was just a realignment. If anybody remembers those great San Antonio teams where everyone in the world knew Manu (Ginobili) was a starter. But sometimes to balance out your lineup, you have to put a player of his magnitude in a reserve role so now when the starters go to sit down and take their break, you’re not totally falling off a cliff. You have balance in the second unit.”
Reaves says he understands the move:
Reaves said he understood the move and that he was focused on winning.
“I’m a competitor,” Reaves said. “Truthfully, don’t want to have that conversation. Would love to have been playing better to not have those conversations, winning as a team. But, my parents taught me at a young age that the coach is the coach. And his decision, regardless if you agree with it or don’t agree with it, you respect that. That’s what I did. We had a good dialogue back and forth on what we thought we could do to be better as a unit. Winning is the main thing.”
Lakers get big second-chance efforts:
The Lakers made 12 of 27 3-point shots and got big second-chance efforts. On perhaps the biggest possession of the game, the Lakers got three offensive rebounds before James hit Reddish for that corner 3 to push them up five with 1:10 left.
James takes a jab at Michigan and Jim Harbaugh:
At the end of the night, James, a huge Ohio State fan, also managed to get in a little dig at rival Michigan and football coach Jim Harbaugh.
James couldn’t resist a jab at Michigan and Harbaugh, who was handed a suspension for the remainder of the regular season from the Big Ten Conference amid an ongoing NCAA investigation over alleged sign stealing.
“I think us having a knowledge of Coach [Frank] Vogel and his coaching staff,” James said of the former Lakers coach when asked about playing against Phoenix’s defense. “We know that he’s going to switch defenses up and he has a lot of defensive packages, a lot of schemes. So just about trying to read the game and see at what point, what the first quarter, second quarter, third, fourth, what are they in? We’ve got some history with Coach Frank, so we able to kind of have that blueprint and be able to steal some signals as well.
“So that was key to our success and the best thing about tonight is that we were able to get those signals in [and] we still [are] able to play on Sunday. We don’t get suspended like that team up North.”
The Lakers will next play the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday at home.