The Lakers Beat the Suns…But Not By Much

Last night the Lakers played the Suns and although Phoenix only had eight players available, their 115-110 victory was a shaky one. Lakers coach Phil Jackson started Luke Walton instead of Vladimir Radmanovic but the Lakers still weren’t able to take advantage of the fact that Shaquille O’Neal (who was attending funeral services for his grandmother in New Jersey) was missing. Everyone expected the Suns to be the disadvantaged team, as they recently lost to two sub-.500 teams, but on the court it was the Lakers that looked short-handed. Grant Hill scored 23 points on nine-for-11 shooting and former UCLA star Matt Barnes made five three-point attempts on the way to 25 points.

At Staples Center the Lakers improved 18-3 overall, 11-1 at home, but were obviously not pleased with their performance. Jackson declined to open up his postgame news conference with a brief statement, instead commenting dryly, “Maybe I’ll put it on tape and just run it right here on the podium so you guys don’t have to ask me questions anymore.” What questions was Jackson referring to? Well, they were probably along the lines of, “What’s wrong with the Lakers?” Jackson wasn’t too worried when asked about Kobe Bryant’s performance: “Not worrisome. Maybe bothersome would be a better term, a minor drop down from worrisome.”

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