The Lakers (51-29) will complete their final back-to-back of the season on Friday against the Phoenix Suns (44-36).<\/p>\n
A win would greatly help them secure the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference. With just a couple of games left, this playoff race will come down to the wire.<\/p>\n
Start time and TV schedule<\/p>\n
When: 7:30 p.m. PT, Apr 10<\/p>\n
Watch: Spectrum Sportsnet<\/p>\n
LA hasn\u2019t had much luck against Phoenix this season. They have lost three of their four matchups against them, with Devin Booker and longtime Lakers foe Dillon Brooks doing most of the damage in those contests.<\/p>\n
At this point in the season, the Suns are cemented as the No. 7 seed, so they don\u2019t have the same urgency to win as the Lakers do. That could work in the Lakers\u2019 favor.<\/p>\n
For LA to win, it\u2019s going to take a coalition of the willing. That means LeBron James, if he\u2019s active, has to carry a large load once again. As the team\u2019s best available ball handler, he has to score and set up the players on the court for good looks at the basket.<\/p>\n
For those looks to be converted, his teammates have to knock down shots. Rui Hachimura is one of LA\u2019s best shooters, converting on 43.6% of his 3-point attempts. Luke Kennard is another laser who can get hot from deep. Kennard\u2019s also shown the ability to handle the ball now that Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and Austin Reaves are out.<\/p>\n
Also, can LA get a big performance from Deandre Ayton? He\u2019s coming off a good performance in LA\u2019s win over Golden State, and that level of play is something he can regularly do.<\/p>\n
If he replicates that on Friday night, the Lakers can end the game with possession of the fourth seed with just one contest remaining.<\/p>\n
The Lakers need this game and the Suns don\u2019t. That, along with the playoffs approaching, should be motivation enough to push through the exhaustion of the back-to-back and secure the result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lakers (51-29) will complete their final back-to-back of the season on Friday against the Phoenix Suns (44-36).…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3791],"tags":[7,64012,6,2065,472,4045,604],"class_list":{"0":"post-707144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix-suns","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-los-angeles-lakers-discussion","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-phoenix-suns","13":"tag-phoenixsuns","14":"tag-suns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116378677020272948","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}