Phoenix Suns (44-36, seventh in the Western Conference) vs. Los Angeles Lakers (51-29, fourth in the Western Conference)<\/p>\n
Los Angeles; Friday, 10:30 p.m. EDT<\/p>\n
BOTTOM LINE: Collin Gillespie and the Phoenix Suns take on LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in Western Conference play.<\/p>\n
The Lakers have gone 9-7 against division opponents. Los Angeles scores 116.4 points and has outscored opponents by 1.2 points per game.<\/p>\n
The Suns are 10-6 against the rest of their division. Phoenix scores 112.8 points while outscoring opponents by 1.4 points per game.<\/p>\n
The Lakers’ 11.8 made 3-pointers per game this season are just 0.4 fewer made shots on average than the 12.2 per game the Suns allow. The Suns’ 45.5% shooting percentage from the field this season is 3.0 percentage points lower than the Lakers have given up to their opponents (48.5%).<\/p>\n
The teams meet for the fifth time this season. The Suns won 113-110 in the last matchup on Feb. 27.<\/p>\n
TOP PERFORMERS: Deandre Ayton is averaging 12.4 points and eight rebounds for the Lakers. James is averaging 16.5 points over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n
Royce O’Neale is scoring 9.8 points per game and averaging 4.7 rebounds for the Suns. Gillespie is averaging 2.1 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n
LAST 10 GAMES: Lakers: 6-4, averaging 114.5 points, 41.2 rebounds, 26.8 assists, 9.2 steals and 4.8 blocks per game while shooting 51.4% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 115.9 points per game.<\/p>\n
Suns: 5-5, averaging 116.8 points, 42.2 rebounds, 24.6 assists, 8.4 steals and 5.6 blocks per game while shooting 46.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 112.3 points.<\/p>\n
INJURIES: Lakers: Austin Reaves: out (rib), Marcus Smart: out (ankle), Jaxson Hayes: out (foot), Luka Doncic: out (hamstring).<\/p>\n
Suns: Devin Booker: out (ankle), Haywood Highsmith: out (knee), Jalen Green: day to day (knee), Jordan Goodwin: out (ankle).<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive<\/a> and data from Sportradar<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phoenix Suns (44-36, seventh in the Western Conference) vs. Los Angeles Lakers (51-29, fourth in the Western Conference)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3791],"tags":[88490,1297,7,6,446,2065,472,4045,66,604],"class_list":{"0":"post-707213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix-suns","8":"tag-88490","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-nba-basketball","13":"tag-phoenix","14":"tag-phoenix-suns","15":"tag-phoenixsuns","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-suns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116379148874696693","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707213","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=707213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}