|
 Brandon Knight scored 25 points and Jon Leuer had 22 points and 14
rebounds for the Suns, who beat the Lakers for the 10th straight
time in Phoenix They have won 11 of the last 13 overall, two of them
in the last five days.
Bryant scored 17 points in 5 of 13 shooting in his 87th and final
game against Phoenix. He gave the crowd a thrill with back-to-back
3-pointers in the final minutes before leaving with 1:05 left to the
last of several standing ovations.
Julius Randle had 19 points to lead the Lakers and D'Angelo Russell
added 14 points.
Phoenix appeared to have the game put away when Leuer and John
Jenkins opened the fourth quarter with 3-pointers to give the Suns a
15-point lead at 89-74. But the Lakers roared back with a 14-2 run
and a 3-pointer by Russell with 6:59 left cut the Phoenix lead to
93-90.
 Bryant re-entered the game with the game close down the stretch, but
the Suns answered quickly with a 16-4 run of their own, with one
3-pointer by Leuer followed by two in a row by Knight and a 3-point
play by Leuer to restore the Phoenix lead to 109-94 with 4:21 left.
Bryant was greeted by a standing ovation for the sellout crowd of
18,191 mostly Laker-clad fans and was cheered every time he touched
the ball early. He helped Los Angeles to an early 13-6 lead with six
points while the Suns missed 13 of their first 15 shots from the
field and looked jittery amid the hoopla.
Lou Williams added seven points in the final 2:10 of the period and
the Lakers led 22-16 after the period.
Booker, who talked about looking forward to the chance to play
against and guard Bryant, had nine of his 13 points in the first
quarter to keep the Suns close. The rest of the team made only three
shots.
[to top of second column] |
The Suns tied the game at 24 on a Mirza Teletovic 3-pointer with
10:11 left in the half before the Lakers answered with a 12-2 run
with a Russell floating jumper pushing the lead to 36-26 with 7:28
to go. It was the only basket in a 1-for-7 first half for Russell.
Down 45-37 with two minutes left, the Suns closed the half on a 10-2
run, with all of the points, with Knight's layup with 4.4 seconds
left tying the game at 47.
The Suns took the lead for good with a 36-27 third quarter,
highlighted by Teletovic's 11 points.
NOTES: Kobe Bryant went into his final meeting with Phoenix with
2,313 points scored in 86 combined regular season and postseason
games (26.9 points a game) against the Suns. Only Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar (3,029) has scored more against the Suns. No opponent
has scored more points in the 23-year-history of Talking Stick Arena
than Bryant's 1,131 points in 41 games. His is the only opponent to
top 1,000 points in the building. He also holds the arena record for
the most points in a regulation game (51 on April 7, 2006) and has
more 30-point games (36) than any Suns opponent. ... Jon Leuer
started for the Suns in place of Tyson Chandler (back spasms). Leuer
had 13 points and 13 rebounds against the Memphis Grizzlies on
Monday, his seventh double-double of the season.
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
