Jaxson Hayes grabbed a rebound late in the second quarter and passed the ball to Luka Doncic, who promptly threw a bad pass for a turnover. A few seconds later, Doncic got a rebound and lost the ball for another turnover. Then he threw away another pass. A minute later, he did it again.
Over a roughly two-minute stretch in the second quarter, Doncic turned the ball over four times.
It was that kind of night for Doncic and the Lakers. Their inability to take care of the basketball doomed them in a 125-108 loss to the Phoenix Suns on Monday night at Crypto.com Arena.
The Lakers had 22 turnovers and Doncic had nine.
“Yeah, that was my fault. No way I can have nine turnovers in the game,” said Doncic, who also had 38 points and 11 rebounds. “So in that second quarter… they’re giving the shots, (so) instead of shooting the ball, I feel like I was trying to get (everyone) involved. But there’s no way I should have nine turnovers.”
Austin Reaves was nearly as bad, turning it over five times.
“I dribbled the ball literally out of bounds one time,” said Reaves, who had 16 points. “I’ve done it before. I did it tonight and at some point I’ll probably do it again. … I was bad in that aspect, so I gotta be better.”
LeBron James, who extended his double-figure scoring streak in the regular season to 1,297 games, had three turnovers as the Lakers’ Big Three combined for 17.
Entering the game, the Suns averaged an NBA-high 10.6 steals per game, and the Lakers were aware of that.
“Turnovers, turnovers (and) transition points,” said James about what went wrong for the Lakers. “And obviously on our home floor and against a disruptive defense like that, you can’t turn the ball over that much. And they were pretty much all pick-sixes. They not only turned us over, they were able to convert.”
This story originally appeared on LA Times
