Nothing is easy for the Los Angeles Lakers these days. Especially when players like Royce O’Neale are doing what he did Thursday.<\/p>\n
The veteran wing hit a game-winning 3-pointer with 0.9 seconds left to lift the short-handed Phoenix Suns to a 113-110 win over the Lakers, spoiling a double-digit comeback in the fourth quarter for Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
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With two free throws and a layup in the Suns’ previous two possessions, O’Neale scored the team’s final seven points.<\/p>\n
The Suns entered the game missing their top scorers in Devin Booker and Dillon Brooks due to injuries. Yet, they were competitive from the start against a nearly full-strength Lakers team.<\/p>\n
They took a 12-point lead midway through the fourth quarter, at which point the Lakers went to work. A 10-2 run made it a competitive game in the final minutes, and the Lakers tied the game with a minute left on an Austin Reaves 3-pointer.<\/p>\n
O’Neale finished the game with 13 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists, while Grayson Allen led the Suns with 26 points and 6 assists off the bench. It was a big Luka Don\u010di\u0107 night on the other side, with 41 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists.<\/p>\n
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Ultimately, the Suns’ strategy was to go to the 3-point line with their two most-used offensive players sidelined. They made 22 of 50 shots from deep, the most 3-pointers any team has attempted against the Lakers this season. Allen and Collin Gillespie combined for 27 of those shots, and made six each.<\/p>\n
It was a supremely meaningful game for the standings as well. The Suns remain in seventh place in the Western Conference, but are now only a game back from the sixth-place Lakers for the final guaranteed playoff spot.<\/p>\n
The Lakers have lost three straight games \u2014 their previous losses came against the Orlando Magic and Boston Celtics \u2014 and are 19-20 since Dec. 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nothing is easy for the Los Angeles Lakers these days. Especially when players like Royce O’Neale are doing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,30097,63,726,1664,172102,7224,20447,16476,481,7232,11473,254694,12985,7185,254693,85,187456],"class_list":{"0":"post-507446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-austin-reaves","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-boston-celtics","13":"tag-collin-gillespie","14":"tag-devin-booker","15":"tag-dillon-brooks","16":"tag-grayson-allen","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","19":"tag-luka-doncic","20":"tag-o39neale","21":"tag-orlando-magic","22":"tag-phoenix-suns","23":"tag-royce-o39neale","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-the-suns"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}