Tonight, at 8 p.m. in Los Angeles, the Phoenix Suns will take on the Lakers in the first round of the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!During pool play action of the tournament, the Lakers completely dominated West Group B, going a perfect 4-0.
Meanwhile, after losing their first game of pool play, the Phoenix Suns had to rely on their point differential to allow them to advance to the knockout stage, which worked out.
Overall this season, the Suns and the Lakers hold fairly similar records, with both teams claiming 12 wins. To make things even more interesting, the Lakers hold one of the best home records in the NBA at 8-2, while the Suns hold the best away record in the NBA at 7-3.
It should also be mentioned that these two teams have already faced each other twice this season, with both matchups going almost exactly the same way.
Although the Suns led for the first three quarters in their meetings with the Lakers, it has been a pair of fourth-quarter collapses that have kept them winless against LA.
The Lakers have outscored Phoenix by 27 points in the fourth quarter combined between these two games.
While one can point to multiple different reasons why these collapses happened, the biggest one of them all has to be the Suns injury problems.
With Devin Booker having already missed nine games, Bradley Beal missing 17 games, and Kevin Durant missing two, consistency has been tough to come by with Phoenix this season.
And for this very reason, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal have them losing to the Lakers in the in-season tournament.
During a recent TNT broadcast, Charles Barkley shared his perspective on the upcoming game, stating, “I don’t think they can beat the Lakers (Tuesday).”
This was followed by O’Neal adding, “I’m not really impressed with the Suns yet. They have a lot of talent. I know Bradley Beal has been in and out, but the Lakers are playing well.”
O’Neal concluded with, “I’m not sold on Phoenix yet.”
The Suns enter this matchup as +110 underdogs.
