Wednesday night against the Phoenix Suns, the Los Angeles Lakers suffered their second blowout loss of the 2014-15 season.
For the second time in as many days, the Lakers struggled on defense and sputtered on offense, relying too heavily on Kobe Bryant. Bryant, who started the game icing a sore shoulder, found himself shouldering the Lakers' offense from early in the contest. He scored seven of the Lakers' first nine points and hit 19 points by the halftime intermission.
Unfortunately, the Lakers failed to control the Suns in any capacity. Phoenix was especially lethal on three-pointers, as the Suns hit nine of their first 17 shots from long range. That was by halftime. In sharp contrast, the Lakers only attempted three shots from behind the arc in the first half.
As they did against the Houston Rockets one night earlier, the Lakers fell behind early. The purple and gold trailed by 18 points in the first quarter before clawing back to within four points in the second period.
The Lakers' rally was largely spurred by the promising play of new addition Ed Davis. Davis notched up nine points, grabbed five rebounds, handed out two assists and snatched a steal in the first half. Still, the Lakers did not receive much production from elsewhere and trailed by nine at the intermission.
Davis would eventually finish with 14 points, nine rebounds, three assists and two steals.
In the second half, Bryant's sore shoulders were unable to keep up with the Suns' offense. After three quarters, Bryant was up to 31 points on 25 shot attempts, but the Lakers trailed by 24 points. As such, Lakers' coach Byron Scott opted to sit his star player for the final 12 minutes. Actually, he sat all his starters for the fourth quarter.
When analyzing what went wrong, one could not help but point to the dismal performance put on by Carlos Boozer. Boozer finished with twice as many turnovers, eight, as points, four. Also, Jeremy Lin continued to struggle in generating offense. Lin finished with six points, one assist and two turnovers in 21 minutes.
One unexpected bright spot was Wayne Ellington. Ellington missed the Lakers' season opener due to a concussion, but the time off appeared to rectify the guard’s shot. Ellington finished with 13 points on six of nine shooting from the field.
The fourth quarter proved to be academic, along with the final score: 119-99.
Next, the Lakers host the LA Clippers at Staples Center on Halloween.
