LeBron James looks spry as Lakers knock out Suns in Game LOS ANGELES Amid the nail biting the hand

LOS ANGELES — Amid the nail-biting, the hand-wringing, the nervous speculation about a very specific right ankle, the Lakers have maintained one truth all along:

No one knows better than LeBron James what he can physically do.

That wisdom seemed especially prescient in the third quarter of Thursday’s Game 3 against the Phoenix Suns, as the 36-year-old streaked up the baseline through the paint and flushed home a dunk with his right hand – a hammer that has flattened an army of challengers over the last decade, and is still looking ripe for the swinging.

Along with his running mate Anthony Davis (34 points, 11 rebounds), James (21 points, nine assists) was the heart of a knockout second-half effort by the Lakers, who claimed a 109-95 victory to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven first-round playoff series. After leading by just three points at halftime of their first home playoff game since 2013, the Lakers saw their fortunes turn when James decided to attack the rim.

“His mindset just reversed the whole course of tonight’s game: Wanting to get to the rim,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said.

James and Davis combined for 28 of the Lakers’ 33 points in the pivotal third quarter that saw them outscore the Suns by 10. In between the re-emergence of James’ bruising drives and Davis’ dunks, the Lakers practiced smothering defense that flustered the Suns’ leading scorer Devin Booker (6 for 19, 19 points) and kept one of the league’s best offenses searching for answers.

Undoubtedly some of those frustrations are still tied to the shoulder of Chris Paul (seven points, six assists), the veteran point guard who did not attempt a 3-point shot on Thursday night even as he played a full allotment of minutes. But James – who missed 26 of the last 28 regular-season games with a high right ankle sprain – isn’t fully healthy either.

Or at least he hadn’t looked it before Game 3.

There was a vintage James feel to fourth-quarter possessions as James was matched up with Jae Crowder, drawing the limited-capacity crowd of 7,825 to its feet in anticipation as the four-time league MVP performed. On one of these drives, James finished with a reverse scoop that dangled on the rim for an extra beat before dropping in gently through the net.

James acknowledged again he’s only able to play at this level with “round-the-clock treatment,” and he’s still shy of his absolute prime. But he certainly drew a strong facsimile for those key stretches.

“Obviously it’s been a rough year on me as far as physically with my ankle and dealing with that and still trying to get it where it was before the injury,” he said. “But every day is a step forward.”

Davis was just as forceful on his looks, getting to the basket for dunk after dunk after two games of feeling out his midrange shot. It was strategy by the Lakers, who cut and moved off the ball with more urgency with an eye toward lobbing it to Davis’ sizeable mitts at any available opportunity.

Of his 22 attempts, 12 came within 5 feet of the rim, including five dunks (one attempt caromed high off the back of the rim). Vogel gave him credit for hustling down in transition despite an awkward landing on a second-quarter blocked shot when he hyper-extended his left knee. At least once in the second half, Vogel discussed pulling Davis from the game – the medical staff advised that it was safe for Davis to play, just painful.

“We needed him to stay in there to get this W,” Vogel said. “He knew that. He was going to do whatever it took for us to get this W.”

As they have throughout the series, the Suns hung in, pulling within eight points with less than a minute-and-a-half to go. Lakers point guard Dennis Schröder (20 points) delivered a pair of timely buckets to provide some punch to the lagging offense that still was missing reliable 3-point shooting (7 for 28), then the team got crucial free throws from James and Kyle Kuzma to seal the win.

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The final minute was a laugher for the Lakers as two Suns were ejected in rapid succession: After a minute of chirping back and forth, Booker sent Schröder sprawling to the floor with a two-handed shove that was later ruled a flagrant foul; the German point guard hammed it up for the crowd, knocking out a handful of push-ups by the baseline. Moments later, Crowder was ejected for jawing with Schröder himself, and the rest of the Laker lineup was guffawing as the hard-nosed defensive specialist stormed out.
“Nobody’s gonna disrespect me,” said Schröder, who knows a thing or two about being an antagonist. “The end of the day, I just talk back and somebody took it too sensitive, and fouled me.”

The Lakers were not without their wounded: After appearing to hyper-extend his left knee in the third quarter, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (five points) left the game limping off the court and did not return. After the game, he described himself as “sore” but doing reasonably well. It was the latest spill in a season full of them, as the Lakers have furiously crossed their fingers hoping to finally stay healthy at the right time.

They might not be healthy now, but they were good enough to win on Thursday night to take control of the series. And that in itself feels like a measurement of how far the Lakers have come from their shaky start.

“That’s how we want to play: We want to get stops and run and play fast,” Davis said. “That’s the way it’s going to have to be for us to win basketball games – play our style and no matter who we’re playing against, we can’t allow the other team to take us out of our game plan and our rhythm and decide that we want to play.”

Matchup nightmare deepens for Suns vs. underdog Lakers
The Suns raced out to the No. 2 seed only to wind up facing a matchup nightmare in the defending-champion Lakers.
The Phoenix Suns came into this tricky trap-door playoff series with some legit concerns, which in hindsight really hadn’t been all that bad. Now, they seem worse.

Phoenix is halfway to a summer vacation, a place this franchise has known all too well over the last decade, a place the Suns were hoping to avoid and delay at least for a while this time … and then they drew the Lakers in the first round. In that sense, the Suns’ timing is poor, much like a water buffalo making a wrong turn and stumbling into a lion’s den.

The Suns are the No. 2 seed in the West, which of course means absolutely nothing when the No. 7 seed happens to be the reigning champion Los Angeles Lakers lead by LeBron James and Anthony Davis. After missing a combined 63 games, they’re anxious to resume where they left off in the 2020 restart bubble.

It’s now 2-1 Lakers after Thursday’s 109-95 victory and by all accounts the seedings should be flip-flopped if only for cosmetic purposes. The Lakers are the heavy. The Lakers own momentum. The Lakers are favored to win two more. The Lakers are the Lakers.

The Suns? They had a nice regular season, one of great progress, given their recent history of skipping the postseason. But once again, the playoffs are a different animal, one that demands the beast in you, or else. And right now, the Suns are suffering from a lack of ferocity against a team built to last much longer.

The main problem for Phoenix, aside from Chris Paul not being able to use his right hand to scratch his back without a wince, is a lousy matchup. Anybody but the Lakers — this should’ve been the first item on the Suns’ wish list to the basketball gods, who evidently ignored those pleas.

Here’s whats troubling the Suns:

1) They aren’t constructed to defend LeBron and Davis. Sure, few teams are. Other teams, though, can at least bring athletic bigs into the picture. Phoenix can’t. LeBron is being guarded mostly by Mikal Bridges, who gives away almost 50 pounds. Seizing the opportunity, LeBron goes into post-up mode whenever Bridges is across from him. Meanwhile, same goes for Davis, who sees mostly Jae Crowder, who lacks the length needed to compete with an All-Star forward who can score from anywhere. LeBron and Davis averaged 56 points combined the last two games.

2) Their long-distance shooting is spotty. Crowder in particular came up empty in that regard Thursday, going 0-for-6 on 3-pointers until making his final attempt. Overall, the Suns’ starters were 4-for-15. That won’t cut it.

3) The Suns have limitations in reserve. Frustrated by the team’s lack of quality size with the exception of Deandre Ayton, coach Monty Williams turned to Frank Kaminsky for important playoff minutes. Kaminsky was cut in the preseason … by the Sacramento Kings.

4) Devin Booker hasn’t seriously hurt the Lakers. In the Suns’ two losses, Booker shot 13-for-36. He’s the club’s first option by far, and coming off an All-Star season. He is a handful for even the league’s elite defenders. In this series, though, he must be Superman or close enough. Especially because …

5) Paul once again is a part-time player. The bum shoulder followed him to a third game and was problematic enough to limit him to 27 minutes (this after playing 23 minutes prior), none in the final 9 1/2 minutes. Paul isn’t on the floor deep into games, when his composure, wisdom and bucket-making is most needed. Whenever Paul left Game 3, he was worked over on the bench like a cornerman in a championship fight. The Suns’ medical staff is grinding in overtime with him.

So that’s the story. The Lakers own the upper hand and they know it. This mindset was captured in an entertaining moment in the fourth quarter, in front of the Lakers bench, when LeBron James was aggressively egged on by teammates while he went mano-a-mano against Crowder.

LeBron did a Curly Neal impression by dribbling between his legs, and later finished Crowder off with an up-and-under reverse layup. It was more unfair than disrespectful. Or, maybe both.

The only red flag for the Lakers happened when Davis executed a chase-down block of Booker in the second quarter, landed funny, and spent the rest of the game running very gingerly. But running nonetheless.

The Lakers collectively are running in step, too, away from the Suns and toward the next round if you read the tea leaves of this series and they aren’t lying. A two-seed is wobbly and a seven-seed is strutting. The math says this would be an upset if the lower seed wins. The matchup says: Maybe not.

Report: Caldwell-Pope to undergo MRI on left quad after Game 3 injury
The Lakers veteran hasn't shot well from 3 this postseason, but is a plus-29 over Games 2 and 3 combined.

The Lakers’ emphatic Game 3 victory came tinged with injury news. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is slated to undergo an MRI, per ESPN’s Dave McMenamin,  after a left quad contusion forced him to exit with 4:16