Tag: NBA Basketball

Kyle Kuzma hits huge shots to help Lakers rally past Suns

LeBron James and Anthony Davis both had double-doubles as they held off the Phoenix Suns for a win on Tuesday night.

Anthony Davis had 22 points, 11 rebounds and four assists,  LeBron James had 19 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds, while Kyle Kuzma had 23 points off the bench as the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Phoenix Suns 123-115 on Tuesday night.

The Suns had three players score 20 points or more (Aron Baynes, Ricky Rubio, Devin Booker) but that wasn’t enough as Kuzma and Green hit big shots from the outside to support their stars.

Davis didn’t appear to be bothered too much by the shoulder issue as he totaled 14 points, five rebounds and three assists in the first half while the Lakers nursed a 60-58 lead at halftime.

Even though Rondo was back in the lineup, LeBron James didn’t look like he would slow down his role as distributor with nine assists to go with eight points in the first half. Rondo played 14 minutes and finished with five points, seven assists and six rebounds in his debut.

The Suns stayed in the game in large part thanks to the 3-point shot, scoring 58 points on what had been the best defense in the league. They shot 8-16 from the 3-point line in the first half with their role players mostly doing the job as Aron Baynes, Ricky Rubio and Frank Kaminsky each hit multiple 3-pointers in the first half. However, they cooled off considerably in the second half.

Kuzma provided a big spark for the Lakers off the bench, having his first breakout game of the season in Phoenix. He had 13 first half points including a personal 6-0 run to close the first quarter to cut the Suns lead from nine to just three in 57.2 seconds of game time. He also closed out the game two two big 3-pointers in the final minutes.

A huge 3-pointer by Kuzma with 2:10 left pushed the Lakers lead to 117-113, giving the Lakers the opportunity to play from ahead in the last two minutes. And then Kuzma hit another with 1:40 left to put the Lakers up by seven points.

The Lakers head back to L.A. as they will face a short-handed Golden State Warriors crew on Wednesday night at Staples Center.

Rajon Rondo gets upgraded to probable for debut Tuesday at Suns

After missing the first nine games of the season, Rajon Rondo will make his season debut for the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night.

After having LeBron James due basically all of the heavy lifting at the point guard spot for the first three weeks of the season, he will have considerably more help when he’s out of the game on Tuesday night as the Los Angeles Lakers are now officially expecting 14-year veteran guard Rajon Rondo to play against the Phoenix Suns.

Bill Oram of The Athletic reported the latest update from the Lakers that Rondo had been upgraded from questionable to probable following the team’s shoot around on Tuesday morning. The hope for the Lakers is that adding Rondo will alleviate some of the playmaking burden for LeBron, even though he’s done quite well with by leading the NBA in assists through the first nine games.

Rondo also has a strong connection with Anthony Davis dating back to their lone season together in New Orleans.

Davis has gone on the record multiple times saying how much he loves playing with Rondo and values his perspective. And unlike his first season with LeBron, the Pelicans did quite well with Rondo and Davis sharing the court in 2017-18, outscoring their opponents by 4.1 points per 100 possessions on their way to a first round sweep of the Portland Trail Blazers.

Adding another playmaker to the mix, even though LeBron leads the NBA in assists, will be good for the Lakers long-term, especially if Rondo’s New Orleans success with Davis is replicated in L.A.

In addition to the update on Rondo, Troy Daniels is still questionable to play against his former team but the good news is that his MRI didn’t reveal anything concerning long-term.

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Rajon Rondo says Lakers told him calf issue similar to Durant’s from Finals

Los Angeles Lakers guard Rajon Rondo told reporters he was eager to return before learning of similarities to his injury and Kevin Durant.

The Los Angeles Lakers didn’t have to try hard to prevent Rajon Rondo from rushing his return from a sore calf that has bothered him since the second week of the preseason. All they had to do was tell him the most recent example of someone with a similar injury returning too soon: Brooklyn Nets forward and former Golden State Warriors star Kevin Durant.

Rondo, who was expected to play on Sunday but was scratched following a workout on Saturday, told reporters at Monday’s Lakers practice that the team’s medical staff let him know the similarities between his current condition and the one that eventually led to Durant’s torn Achilles during the NBA Finals in June.

While Rondo’s return seemed imminent as recently as this weekend, it’s clear that both he and the Lakers training staff are taking a most cautious approach with the veteran point guard in his 14th season.

Davis says shoulder is ‘fine’ and hopes to play Tuesday at Phoenix

Davis added that he won’t know for sure that he will play against the Phoenix Suns until going through shoot around on Tuesday.

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Anthony Davis told reporters after the Los Angeles Lakers first loss in over two weeks that he does feel discomfort in his shoulder fairly often when he’s playing after aggravating it on a block attempt in Sunday’s game against the Toronto Raptors. But come Monday afternoon, Davis was already past his discomfort while also admitting he’s not 100 percent sure he will play Tuesday night against a strong Phoenix Suns group.

Davis told reporters on Monday that he hopes to play Tuesday at Phoenix but won’t make the final call on whether he will play until he goes through shoot around in Phoenix, according to Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times.

Davis also suggested that his shoulder is much better than it was when he initially injured it on a missed dunk during the team’s victory over the Charlotte Hornets on Oct. 27, according to Mike Trudell for Lakers.com.

We can forgive Davis for holding saying two disconnecting thoughts at once because it seems like his shoulder is going to be a day-to-day thing as the season goes on, so his outlook on his shoulder will likely vary from one day to the next.

Until Sunday night’s game, Davis had gone quite a while without enduring a shoulder discomfort but it’s been something he’s had to deal with for a long time. He had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder after the 2015-16, but it’s his right one that is currently ailing. Either way, it looks like it will be something he’s going to deal with all season. Sometimes like Monday, it will be simple for Davis. But as Sunday showed, there will be complicated moments as well.

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Frank Vogel says injured Rajon Rondo will return ‘hopefully soon’

Rajon Rondo’s return from a calf injury has been a slow and deliberate one, with no clear end in sight.

All things considered, the Los Angeles Lakers are having a great start to the season. When they hit the three-week mark on Tuesday, they will still be 7-2 heading into a game against the Phoenix Suns. But if you were hoping for them to get Rajon Rondo back in the lineup soon, his two-steps-forward-one-step-back recovery from a sore calf, has complicated it.

After being close to playing on Sunday, Rondo’s return was immediately called off after a 5-on-5 workout, according to Yahoo’s Chris Haynes. And the outlook for Rondo doesn’t look any clearer after Sunday’s loss to the Toronto Raptors. Coach Frank Vogel told reporters that it would be “hopefully soon” when Rondo returns but acknowledged that the soft tissue injury has been tricky to deal with.

According to Harrison Faigen for Silver Screen and Roll, Vogel said before the game on Sunday:

It’s tough to say. With a soft tissue injury, you never know how quickly those things are going to heal. You want to have the mindset where you can ramp up activity and get through it with no pain and no soreness. And if that doesn’t happen then it can be delayed. So it’s not that unusual in my mind.

Vogel doesn’t seem too concerned by the injury given its nature as a difficult injury to recover from, let alone for a veteran like Rondo. The Lakers are taking it slow, but their patience doesn’t make Rondo’s slow recovery any less concerning.

LeBron on seeing his sons rundown from AAU tournaments: ‘This isn’t right’

LeBron James said that he sees the toll of AAU basketball first-hand, with his two sons, and says the status quo bothers him.

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When it comes to his own load management, LeBron James has a pretty simple approach. But when it comes to the well-being of his children and the thousands of kids that play youth basketball on the summer tournament circuit, James has many more thoughts as a parent of two hoops hopefuls.

In an interview with Yahoo’s Chris Haynes, James tackled the issue of youth players coming into the league rundown and with injuries. He discussed seeing his sons being forced to play three games in one session at an AAU tournament this year and how jarring it was for him to see his kids rundown, explaining:

Because a lot of these tournaments don’t have the best interest of these kids, man. I see it. It’s like one time, they had to play a quarterfinal game, a semifinal game and a championship game starting at 9 a.m., and the championship game was at 12:30 p.m. Three games. I was like, ‘Oh, hell no.’ And my kids were dead tired. My kids were dead tired. This isn’t right. This is an issue.

Over the summer, the issue of youth basketball wearing down the game’s most promising young players was the topic of a phenomenal expose by ESPN’s Baxter Holmes. And as if the topic didn’t need anymore support, No. 1 overall pick Zion Williamson needed knee surgery days before the season began and No. 2 pick Ja Morant had a knee procedure over the summer.

The issue of players entering the league with chronic injuries is not one that will go away soon. And while LeBron can only influence the workloads of his two sons, it’s clear he doesn’t like the non-stop cycle that often chews up and spits out players before they get a chance to be fully-formed.

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LeBron James becomes first Lakers to get 4 triple-double in 1st 10 games

LeBron James made more franchise history for the Los Angeles Lakers even in their first loss in eight games.

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Sunday night was the first time in two weeks that the Los Angeles Lakers felt what it was like to lose as the Toronto Raptors used a huge second half to end the Lakers seven-game win-streak. But even in the loss, LeBron James managed to make a small bit of Lakers history with his play.

With 13 points, 15 assists and 13 rebounds, James recorded his fourth triple-double of the season. James became the first player in Lakers franchise history to record four triple-doubles in the first 10 games of the season. Interestingly enough, Dallas Mavericks forward Luka Doncic has also accomplished the same feat this season. The Lakers still have one game left before they get to 10 as they sit at 7-2 after nine games.

Although James gets into the history books for the Lakers, he had a particularly bad night in his attempts to score the ball against a rangy and athletic Raptors front court. James was 5-15 from the field on Sunday and an uncharacteristic 3-6 from the free-throw line.

LeBron and the Lakers will head to Phoenix on Tuesday for a quick trip before returning to L.A. on Wednesday to face the Golden State Warriors.