Well that didn't go well. The Los Angeles Lakers opened their seven-game road trip with 121-114 loss to the Phoenix Suns. The Lakers went into halftime with a 58-54 lead but shotty defense, absent rebounding and rampant turnovers plagued the team through the second half. Then they lost their leading scorer on the season, Nick Young, after he lost his cool following a hard foul from Alex Len:
Both Len and Young were ejected for the altercation. Considering Young was throwing closed fist punches you can expect him to miss some time for his reaction. Justified or not he didn't help the situation and the league is unlikely to take this lightly. That'll be another Laker less for the upcoming game against the Boston Celtics.
The Lakers kept it interesting in the second half, keeping the win close enough to smell but too far to taste. A botched defensive possession featuring two more offensive rebounds for Phoenix at the :38 mark of the fourth quarter sealed the final beams of light out of the Lakers' tomb of losses.
Pau Gasol had another solid game, dropping a team-high 24 points on 10-for-20 shooting along with nine rebounds and five assists. If you turn a cheek to the poor interior defense, five turnovers and being a big part of why the Suns pulled down 16 offensive rebounds that's a great outing. Chris Kaman scored 18 points off the bench, going six-of-seven from the field in 16 minutes on the floor.
Not much more to say here aside from four Suns players scored at least 20 points and scored 121 points despite shooting only 21 percent from beyond the arc. That's some awful interior defense from the Lakers, but no one should be surprised about that at this point. Tack on 17 turnovers and that was a wrap for Los Angeles.
Nothing left to do but pack it up and move on to the next one. A dance in Boston against the Celtics, a third game in four nights, and what will likely be an even more shorthanded team once the league drops the hammer on Swaggy P's reaction during the altercation awaits the team Friday.