Curtains for Lakers it seems. That damn injury bug.

Also, Vogel must be using Twitter as his guiding light tonight because he started Marc at center and then brought in Harrell which has predictably been ineffective and the Lakers are being outrebounded brutally to the shock of no one who wasn't basing their analysis on the Twitter hot takes.

Kind of dispels the notion that James is the best player on that team, doesn't it? He misses the playoffs, Davis shows up, he wins a ring, Davis gets hurt the next year, can't win again. It's pretty obvious which straw stirs that drink imo.

Davis should have never been out there in the first place. It was obvious from the get-go that he couldn’t do anything and was hurting really bad. How the Lakers let him out there knowing full well he was like that is just disgusting.

The Lakers are pretty consistently poor whenever either of the two doesn't play.  Which isn't that shocking, really.   Also, Lebron was injured that 2018-19 season, missed a chunk of time and had inconsistency after.  Before that, the Lakers were in the playoff running.  Probably a lower seed.  

But the bigger issue is the team itself.  This team doesn't have the chemistry and cohesion it did last year.  Some of that's time - Drummond has only played a handful of games with the Lakers at full strength.  But some of these guys are just weird fits.  Gasol and Harrell combined aren't worth what Dwight Howard gave them.  And Dennis Schroder was a mistake from day one and I'm not sure why they even got him, James was great as their primary point guard last year.  They should have worked hard to keep that crew together instead of letting myltiple roleplayers go.  They really just needed to be patient, the real prizes are coming in this upcoming off-season.

Yeah, my thoughts too.  Obviously he's gonna say he can play.  He's an all-NBA star player, a defending champ, and he's being mocked by talking heads, of course he's going to want to be in the game.  It's the job of the coach and organization to tell players no when it's this bad.  

Even with Davis' injury, the Lakers could still win this game.
Crazier comebacks have happened.
If they can cut the lead to 10 by the end of the 3rd quarter, they have a real shot.

Edit: 13 points. Eh, close enough. The momentum is clearly on the Lakers' side. The Suns are getting frustrated with themselves.

Now the Lakers are playing with that sense of fire and urgency they should have had from the get go, meanwhile it looks like the Suns took their foot off the gas and are playing not to lose rather than playing to win.

And Chris Paul said NO!

Well, the Suns held it together. But the Lakers would have had a much better chance if Vogel hadn't pissed away the first several minutes with Davis on the court which only hurt them and forced them to adjust on the fly. Would have been tough but much better.

Also, if he hadn't let them get outrebounded brutally for three quarters. The only reason the rebounding was even close was because other guys started grabbing boards, their primary big men were utterly useless.