Phoenix squanders a 22-point lead in defeat

LOS ANGELES — Bradley Beal adjusted his hat perfectly, but his scowl remained the same.

The Phoenix Suns blew a 22-point first-half lead in their 123-116 loss Friday night to the Los Angeles Lakers in front of a sellout crowd at Crypto.com Arena, leaving Beal upset about the team's first loss of the season.

“It’s super frustrating,” Beal said. “We had them 15, 20 down. They were all confused. We had them exactly where we wanted them. They didn't really have an answer to that. We got really complacent.”

Phoenix (1-1) was outscored 97-68 after taking a 48-26 lead on a Beal three-pointer with 9:43 left in the first half.

Kevin Durant scored a team-high 30 points, Devin Booker scored 23 on 21 shot attempts and Beal added 15 and a game-high nine assists. The Suns committed 17 turnovers, which gave the Lakers 26 points.

Anthony Davis powered the Lakers with a dominant 35-point shot, shooting 13 of 17 from the line. He attempted the same number of free throws as the Suns, who only made two more free throws than him.

Austin Reaves scored 26 points and hit 5 of 7 from distance, while LeBron James added 21 points and eight assists. The Lakers finished the game with 29 of 39 points.

Here are three takeaways from Friday's loss. The Suns will play their third game in four days against Dallas (1-0) in their home opener at Footprint Center on Saturday at 7 p.m

Stopped sharing the ball

Phoenix had 14 assists on 15 field goal attempts in the first quarter due to quick ball movement and player movement. The Suns pushed and fought for open plays and didn't hesitate to get started.

They finished the game with 35 assists on 42 field goals, but reverted back to more 1-on-1 basketball in the second and third quarters, accounting for the 17 turnovers.

The Suns have the man with the best assist-to-turnover ratio in Tyus Jones, but Booker, Durant and Beal still initiate more offenses than they should when Jones was signed to fix that problem a season ago. However, Jones only had four assists on Friday with two turnovers.

Maybe it's a matter of figuring out the different lineups and rotations, but when a team goes from unstoppable to careless, that raises more questions when it comes to sticking to the game plan and why Phoenix continues to have these periods of loose basketball with one real point guard on the team.

When the point guard starts the offense, the Big 3 can move without the ball to get free or get to their spots and be ready to shoot. When the Suns try to play one-on-one, there are usually difficult mistakes or turnovers.

These mistakes allowed the Lakers to get out and escape. They went from five fast break points in the first quarter to 28 for the game.

The Lakers gained their confidence, hitting 3 players to 14 of 27 for the game.

When Reaves and James hit four straight 3-pointers to get within one point, 67-66, with 9:20 left in the third, the Suns were in trouble.

More 3s please

Phoenix attempted 11 3s in the first quarter, making eight. That put them on pace to score 44 points, matching their preseason average, but they only managed 26 points the rest of the game.

See, it's easy to take 3 seconds when you're going big. Everyone is having fun and celebrating. Then when the Lakers started to tighten things up, the Suns gave up a few 3s.

Coach Mike Budenholzer felt the Suns weren't getting stops, which fueled their offense. True, but they also didn't focus on moving the ball when they lost the lead.

It was like they were playing two different styles. The Lakers finished better with 3s in the second half, but there was enough separation to keep them ahead.

Ironically, the Lakers caught fire from three minutes into the game. After shooting 1 of 5 from distance in the first quarter, the Lakers ended up shooting 14 of 27 for the game.

Budenholzer is still figuring out the lineups to figure out who plays well with whom. He took Beal out after he cooked in the first half.

Once again, Budenholzer looks to control his captains' minutes, but when everyone has the green light to shoot threes, the Suns need to move the ball to ensure they take full advantage of those opportunities.

Durant felt the Suns could have attempted 10 more 3s, and he could have made six on seven instead of three (i.e. two). Grayson Allen was missed on her 3-point attempts. As he and his wife expected, he missed Friday's game for personal reasons.

They may leave Los Angeles thinking 17 of 37 is a good score, but the 3-point shot may be their best option to avoid a one-on-one.

Durant can make any shot, but the best one for this team is the catch-and-shoot 3 because it comes from ball movement. This is the Suns' best offense, not one-on-one, even with three great one-on-one players.

Free throw discrepancy

At one point, Phoenix was 1 of 2 on free throws while the Lakers were 13 of 18. Los Angeles finished the game 29 of 39 versus Phoenix 15 of 17.

Here's the deal.

Offensively, the Suns are not a downhill team that attacks the paint. Now they did make contact, but not at the level to make a number of free throw attempts.

Defensively, the Suns need to be better at keeping teams out of the game off the dribble.

Then there's Davis, who is a nightmare for everyone, but especially for the Suns. Last season he prevailed over Jusuf Nurkic and started the season with the same success.

Nurkic played a terrible game, scoring just four points and committing four fouls and four turnovers in 18 minutes. It got to a point where Budenholzer caved, knowing it wasn't the best move to stop Davis but could help spread the Lakers out on the other side.

Does this sound familiar? The Suns fell short last year with Durant at the fifth spot, but that leaves them vulnerable on the glass trying to stop Davis.

Quickly back to Nurkic. He's gotten leaner and was hoping to take more threes at the start of the season, but then the Suns tried to get him to screen and dive to the rim. That's not his strength.

It might be better to play pick-and-pop and have Plumlee and freshman Oso Ighodaro jump to the rim.

Do you have any opinions on the current state of the suns? Reach Suns Insider Duane Rankin at [email protected] or contact him at 480-810-5518. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @DuaneRankin.

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Stopped sharing the ball

More 3s please

Free throw discrepancy

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