{"id":262395,"date":"2026-04-11T07:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T07:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/262395\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T07:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T07:59:12","slug":"lebron-james-and-lakers-defeat-suns-stay-in-hunt-for-no-3-seed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/262395\/","title":{"rendered":"LeBron James and Lakers defeat Suns, stay in hunt for No. 3 seed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The ball is back in LeBron James<\/a>\u2019 hands, and he is thriving in his \u201cnew\u201d role as the Lakers<\/a>\u2019 primary caretaker.<\/p>\n

James is in this position in the wake of injuries to Luka Doncic<\/a> and Austin Reaves<\/a>. He had been the third option behind Doncic and Reaves, and he shifted back to a role he has been accustomed to playing over his 23-year career.<\/p>\n

James has been a force over the last three games, with his latest standout performance coming Friday night in the Lakers\u2019 101-73<\/a> win over the Phoenix Suns at Crypto.com Arena.<\/p>\n

James finished with 28 points, 12 assists and six rebounds to help the Lakers secure at least the No. 4 seed in the uber-tough Western Conference.<\/p>\n

The Lakers (52-29) still have a shot at the third seed if they beat the Utah Jazz at home on Sunday and if the third-place Denver Nuggets lose at San Antonio on Sunday, the final day of the regular season. Because the Lakers won the tiebreaker over the Nuggets, they would get the higher seed over Denver if the two teams finish with identical records.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously we are going to be able to feed off our crowd. That\u2019s going to be great,\u201d James said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have home court. That\u2019s great for our fans. But the game is played in between the four lines. So, looking forward to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

James was 10 for 16 from the field against the Suns and two for two from three-point range.<\/p>\n

\"Lakers <\/p>\n

Lakers guard Luke Kennard, center, controls the ball in front of Phoenix guards Amir Coffey, left, and Jamaree Bouyea during the first half Friday.<\/p>\n

(Allen J. Schaben \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Over his last three games in this new role, James has averaged 24.6 points, 12.6 assists and 7.6 rebounds, shooting 60% from the field and 46% from three-point range.<\/p>\n

He was on point from the beginning against the Suns.<\/p>\n

James quickly went by a defender on a back-door cut, took a pass from Luke Kennard and threw down a two-handed, rim-rattling dunk. James flexed in front of his teammates on the bench, who stood to give their approval. The Suns called time out with four minutes and 53 seconds left in the first quarter, giving the fans more time to appreciate what James was still able to do at 41 years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just trying to make plays,\u201d James said. \u201cI had to tap back into a role that I\u2019ve been accustomed to in the past, but obviously it wasn\u2019t what it was this year. But circumstances have put me back in and I\u2019m just trying to figure out my teammates and my teammates feeding off me and just trying to make things happen for us to continue to stay afloat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whoever the Lakers face in the playoffs, coach JJ Redick<\/a> believes teams want to face his group because of their injuries. Doncic and Reaves are not expected back for the first-round of the postseason.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure everybody wants to play us. Let\u2019s get that out there, like, everybody wants to play us,\u201d Redick said before the game. \u201cProbably teams that are in a position where they can start looking forward to potential second-round matchups as well. … Again, I\u2019ll say what I told the team yesterday, what I told you guys after the game, we have to figure out the formula and the belief for this group to be successful. And so that\u2019s our focus for tonight and that\u2019s going to be our focus on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Kennard, who had 19 points and three assists in his new role as the lead point guard, the Lakers face a big challenge in the playoffs without Doncic and Reaves.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re missing 60 points a game, and yeah, it\u2019s definitely out there and I\u2019m sure people are thinking about that and what we\u2019re missing,\u201d Kennard said. \u201cBut we also have [James] and the way he\u2019s been playing and leading us has been incredible, and obviously, we\u2019re going to need him to continue to do that. But I think these last few games everybody\u2019s starting to get a rhythm. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re starting to figure out what playoffs are going to look like for us, rotations and all of that,\u201d Kennard continued. \u201cGuys are getting more comfortable with it and they\u2019re playing well together and it\u2019s been fun. So, yeah, I think no matter who we play, we\u2019re going to be ready to fight from Day 1, Game 1. And they gotta come here first, no matter who it is, and I think we\u2019re going to look forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notes: Lakers backup center Jaxson Hayes missed his third straight game with left foot soreness, but he has been making progress. \u201cHope to have him back Sunday,\u201d Redick said. \u201cBut yeah, he\u2019s still day to day.\u201d … The Lakers waived guard Kobe Bufkin. It means the Lakers have a roster spot available to sign another player for the playoffs. \u201cWe\u2019re evaluating all the options we have,\u201d Redick said. … Marcus Smart, who had missed nine straight games with a right ankle contusion, had six points in 18 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ball is back in LeBron James\u2019 hands, and he is thriving in his \u201cnew\u201d role as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[19538,61341,423,349,48,52,51,1415,13505,47,50,49,7551,18158,115241,1417,6049,776,6711,427,43356],"class_list":{"0":"post-262395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-austin-reaves","9":"tag-final-day","10":"tag-game","11":"tag-injury","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-la-headlines","14":"tag-la-news","15":"tag-lakers","16":"tag-lebron-james","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","19":"tag-los-angeles-news","20":"tag-luka-doncic","21":"tag-no","22":"tag-playoff-seed","23":"tag-point","24":"tag-role","25":"tag-sunday","26":"tag-suns","27":"tag-team","28":"tag-three-point-range"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}