There will therefore be no fifth ring of champion for LeBron James, nor a second row final for the Lakers, crowned last year in the Orlando bubble. This season, which ends with a premature elimination in the first round of the play-offs, against the Suns (2-4), ends a difficult, frustrating, disappointing season that the Lakers had finished in seventh place in the regular season (42v -30d). It is also the first time in his career that ” LBJ ”, who played in the first fifteen rounds of the play-offs, is eliminated at this stage from the play-offs.
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Of course, there has been a litany of injuries, including hitting Anthony Davis, who has deprived the major Lakers duo of quite a few games this season. The unavailability of Davis (about thirty matches) will have weighed heavily on the Lakers’ season. She could never be matched by the strength of the group, and the streak against an amazing team from Phoenix only made this deficiency worse. Davis, who had yet received the medical green light to play last night, appeared very diminished, he who had not played since the second half of Game 4, and could not hold out for more than 5 minutes.
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The Suns therefore jumped at their opponent’s throat, in a first quarter fire (36-14!) Where they shot on velvet (13/19 including 10/13 at 3 points), facing a Californian defense at the street and the Lakers struggling offensively (6/21 in this first quarter). The rest of the match was the same. Led by a devilish Devin Booker (47 pts including 8/10 to 3 pts, 11 rebounds, 3 assists), Phoenix has taken a large ascendancy that the Lakers have never been able to reduce. They will come back to ten points, eight minutes from the end of the game, but will never come closer. On the contrary, they conceded a 7-0 in stride, concluded by a vengeful and lodger Chris Paul, who nevertheless suffered in this match (8 pts to 4/12) but brought the game to life for the guys from the Arizona (12 assists). Jae Crowder was formidable behind the award-winning line (18 pts 6/9 to 3 pts) for the Suns to complete their first victory in a series of play-offs since 2010.
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Lakers side, despite LeBron James (29 pts, 9 rebounds, 7 assists), Dennis Schroder (20 points at 6/14), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (19 at 7/11) and the contribution of the bench with Wesley Mathews and Talen Horton-Tucker (12 points each), he missed that extra soul and euphoria that guides the footsteps of Phoenix, which will therefore face Denver in the semifinals of the Western Conference. This huge disappointment did not prevent a very fair LeBron James from offering his jersey to Devin Booker, the executor of the Lakers …
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