The Phoenix Suns leaned in favor of trying to establish rhythm in head coach Jordan Ott’s “rhythm vs. rest” proposition for how to approach the final two regular season games, and he also added an asterisk that health was above anything else.
So that made the results of Friday’s meaningless 101-73 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers a failure.
Grayson Allen was off the injury report after sitting on Wednesday with a right quad contusion, but tweaked his left hamstring in the mid-second quarter and didn’t return.
While Allen has only played 51 games this year due to a handful of minor injuries, he has been a critical offensive piece as a complementary player, and was well on his way to easily the best year of his career if he had stayed healthy. His absence in the postseason would be a big blow to the Suns.
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Trail Blazers positioned to face Suns in play-in tournament after win over Clippers
With the Portland Trail Blazers’ win on Friday against the Los Angeles Clippers, they are a victory against the tanking Sacramento Kings away from coming to Phoenix on Tuesday as the eighth seed in the play-in tournament.
Allen made one appearance against Portland this year and scored 24 points with six 3s in a Phoenix win without Devin Booker. He has been inconsistent the last two months like the entire supporting cast, but his presence off the bench for an offense in a real funk lately as a spacer and driver is integral.
Booker was the lone member of the rotation that opted for rest on Friday, or that was rested by the team. However that works these days. Who knows?
He was asked after Wednesday’s win what he would prefer and he caught himself laughing at the question, perhaps for the notion that he would prefer anything else but rest at this point. While this year has featured Booker’s lowest minutes per game since he was a rookie and the overall minute total is the third-lowest, this year has been one major grind for him as the undisputed captain of the ship for the first time in 10 years of NBA duty.
Jordan Goodwin was out due to a left ankle sprain he sustained on Wednesday. The severity of the ankle sprain will determine if Goodwin can play on Tuesday, but the good news for Suns fans is that when he injured it on Wednesday he was out there at halftime testing it out. That would suggest he at least has a pretty decent shot of being good to go for the play-in tournament.
Jalen Green did not play after getting listed as questionable for right knee soreness, a similar type of optimism for his chances of playing on Tuesday after he played only a few minutes on Wednesday before aggravating his knee.
The rest of the Suns’ available rotation players got regular run through almost three quarters before two-way rookie Koby Brea checked in with over two minutes to go in the third quarter.
Surely Phoenix will opt for more extreme measures in Sunday’s last game of the regular season to avoid another incident like Allen’s injury.
The Lakers wanted to win on Friday.
The Denver Nuggets entered the night as the three seed, one up in the loss column on L.A. and Houston, all with their own adventure to sort out. They had to decide if they’d rather hold strong and face a sixth-seeded Minnesota team in the first round that knocked them out two years ago, or drop to fourth and risk seeing Oklahoma City in the second round.
The choice was apparently trying to lose and dodging Minnesota, as the Nuggets sat all their starters against a Thunder squad also sitting a ton of key guys. But Denver was unsuccessful and remains in the three seed going into Sunday’s regular season finale.
Regardless, the Lakers would hold homecourt in the first round if they won their last two games of the season, a more important factor than attempting their own hoodwinking of the standings for a more preferable matchup. Depending on what happens with Denver on Sunday, two wins for the Lakers either means the third or fourth seed. They own the two-way tiebreakers with both Denver and Houston, plus the three-way tiebreaker.
LeBron James playing the second game of a back-to-back was further indication L.A. was going for this one without Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.
With the Lakers victory and with a surprising Rockets loss to the Timberwolves, they are now locked in to homecourt in the first round.
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