After three straight losses and plenty of hand-wringing, the Los Angeles Lakers finally stopped the bleeding on Friday evening against the Phoenix Suns in the final game of a four-game road trip and their first in-season tournament contest.
Los Angeles got off to a solid start by taking an early 13-7 lead, but it soon found itself down by as many as 14 points and trailed 63-55 at halftime. Yet again, the Lakers were beaten badly on the boards, as they were outrebounded 38-21 and gave up 13 second-chance points in the first half.
They started to chip away at their deficit before going on a 19-4 run starting late in the third quarter to take a four-point lead. For a change, they started hitting from 3-point range, and they also started to get stops in bunches while cleaning up their defensive backboards a little.
Down the stretch, Phoenix kept threatening, but the Lakers were able to continue getting scores, and they came away with a hard-earned 122-119 victory to improve to 4-5 on the season. It was reminiscent of their 100-95 win over Phoenix on Oct. 26 when they overcame a 12-point deficit to start the final period.
Although the Purple and Gold still got outrebounded, they hit 44.4% from 3-point land and had an edge at the free-throw line while getting a decent 20 fast-break points. They now return home, where six of their next seven contests will take place.