Phoenix Suns basketball is officially back today, as the Suns travel to Palm Desert, California to take on the Los Angeles Lakers (0-1) in their preseason opener Sunday night.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The Lakers have already played one preseason game, falling to the Timberwolves 124-107 at home on Friday. First-round rookie Dalton Knecht tied for a team-high 16 points in the loss. LeBron James and Anthony Davis both did not suit up for this matchup, but will play against the Suns, Lakers coach JJ Redick said Saturday.
“We’ll see how everybody came out of practice, but we expect everyone else to be available,” coach Mike Budenholzer said of the team’s plan without Nurkić Saturday, adding they still hadn’t figured out how many minutes the starters would play.
#Suns center Jusuf Nurkić is out tomorrow with a left middle finger injury and will be re-evaluated in one week. @BurnCitySuns
— Brendan Mau (@brendan_mau) October 5, 2024
Nurkić’s injury will allow for more playing time for veteran free-agency addition Mason Plumlee and second-round rookie Oso Ighodaro.
The Lakers won the season series 3-2 over Phoenix in the 2023-24 season with the Suns taking the last two contests.
Overall, this will be the first chance for fans to see how the Suns look under Mike Budenholzer and with a new point guard in Tyus Jones. The team’s three rookies–Ryan Dunn, Ighodaro and Jalen Bridges–will also be given major minutes all preseason, starting tonight.
This will be the first two of two preseason meetings between the teams with the Lakers traveling to Phoenix on Oct. 17. In total, the Suns have five preseason matchups ahead of their season opener on the road against the Los Angeles Clippers on Oct. 23.
Local Game Information
Start Time: 6:30 p.m. MST
Location: Acrisure Arena (Palm Desert, California)
TV Channel: 3TV/AZ Family
Radio: Arizona Sports 98.7 FM, La Mejor 106.5 FM
Stream: Suns Live
— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) October 6, 2024
Injury Report
Phoenix Suns: Jusuf Nurkić (left middle finger injury) OUT
Los Angeles Lakers: N/A
Starters (Projected)
Phoenix Suns: Tyus Jones, Bradley Beal, Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, Mason Plumlee
Los Angeles Lakers: D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, LeBron James, Rui Hachimura, Anthony Davis
Things to Watch for Suns
- Mike Budenholzer’s new system
- What adding a point guard does for the team
- How the rookies perform
- Focus on shooting 3s, playing with tempo
- How will starting lineup fare defensively?
Expectation
I’m not going to predict the preseason games, as teams do not play the preseason to win games, just for development purposes. For the Suns on this side, I definitely do not expect them to look 100% connected after only a week of training camp, but it will be fun to watch how adding a point guard affects their offense. The rookies had an up-and-down experience in Summer League because the team was not built to suit how they would play in the NBA, but today’s game and the rest of the preseason should paint a good picture of how Phoenix plans to utilize them in its system.
We will see just how many minutes the starters play for both teams, but this time will obviously be the focal point of the matchup. Devin Booker has talked about the focus on defense in the first week of training camp, so it’ll be interesting to see how this translates to the court against a bigger team in the Lakers right away with the Suns using three guards. There should be a few takeaways just based on this being the first look at the team, but you can never take too much away from the preseason, especially in the first game everybody plays together after a long summer.
Preview: Injury report
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Brendan Mau is a senior writer covering the Phoenix Suns and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @Brendan_Mau
