Lakers vs. Suns Preview and Game Thread: Two teams that badly need wins

The Lakers and Suns desperately need all the wins they can get to put themselves in a more comfortable position in the standings, making Sunday a high-intensity clash.

The Lakers will face the Phoenix Suns for the fifth and final time this season on Sunday. It will be a matinee meeting between the Pacific Division rivals, who both currently find themselves in the play-in bracket in the competitive Western Conference.

Start time and TV schedule

Who: Los Angeles Lakers vs. Phoenix Suns

When: 12:30 p.m. PT, Feb. 25

Where: Footprint Center

Watch: ABC

It feels like it was just a couple of weeks ago when both the Lakers and Suns had quite the heavyweight battle for the right to advance to the semifinals of the In-Season Tournament in Las Vegas. That was back in December, when the Lakers were the fourth seed in the Western Conference while the Suns were just two slots below them.

At that time, it was fair to assume that these two supposed championship contenders would step up and climb even higher in the standings as the season went on. But unfortunately for the Lakers and Suns, that hasn’t been the case as they’ve been two of a few teams that have underperformed the most this season, at least based on expectations.

Currently, Los Angeles and Phoenix find themselves in the play-in spots, which might be the reason why they will see each other again after Sunday’s game. Like the Lakers, the Suns have struggled to play consistent basketball all season. They’ve had a couple of winning streaks but they’ve been quite mediocre on both ends of the floor for the most part of the season.

Which is why Phoenix finds themselves in the same situation as the Lakers where they need every win they can get now to put themselves in a favorable spot moving forward. They’re coming in on a two-game losing streak and have been dealing with injuries, particularly Bradley Beal (hamstring) and Jusuf Nurkić (ankle).

So it’s either the Suns will approach this game with the desire to put a stop to their losing streak on their home floor or continue to struggle and look vulnerable like they did in their past two games against the Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets on the road. Regardless of what version of the Suns the Lakers will encounter on Sunday, L.A. needs to take care of business and that will boil down to two of these key factors:

How will the Lakers’ starting five match up?

The Lakers’ current starting lineup of D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, LeBron James and Anthony Davis are now 6-0 when they start together. According to the league’s tracking data, they’ve played 101 minutes and currently have an offensive rating of 122.6 and a defensive rating of 114.0. It’s so far been the Lakers’ best two-way starting lineup that they’ve rolled out this season.

Although interestingly enough, the Suns have yet to encounter this particular Lakers unit in any of their last four battles. So it’s going to be interesting to see how this starting unit performs against its toughest opponent yet. Can they keep up with Phoenix’s offense? Will the Lakers be able to take advantage of the clear height advantage they have? And more importantly, can Anthony Davis and LeBron James make the most out of the likely favorable matchups they’ll have?

If Nurkić won’t be ready to go for this one, AD should all the more feast inside the paint. Remember, both he and LeBron had arguably their worst game together in a Lakers jersey in their most recent match against the Suns last January — where they just had 13 and 10 points, respectively. Surely, they won’t play any worse than that on Sunday. They should bounce back because It all starts and ends with this duo’s production.

Can the Lakers contain Book and KD?

Perhaps the biggest weakness of the Lakers when they face the Suns is that they don’t really have anyone to contain Devin Booker. We saw it in their last matchup when Book took turns cooking Austin Reaves and Max Christie with his 31 points. The same can be said about Bradley Beal — who put up 37 points in that same game — if he suits up on Sunday.

If the Lakers want to win this game, they have to limit the production of their opponent’s superstars. It’s not enough to keep up with them, but rather make sure only one of Durant, Booker or Beal explodes for 30 or more points. This is the perfect opportunity for the purple and gold to increase their defensive intensity, which hasn’t really been present for the most part since the All-Star break.

The Lakers have the opportunity to go into Phoenix and get a quality victory before they get two days off and go at it again versus another Pacific Division foe. Let’s see if the Lakers can move an inch closer to the Suns in the standings with a win on Sunday.

Notes and Updates:

• The Suns rank 26th in the league in points in the paint per game (41.5) but are the seventh-best 3-point shooting team in the league. The Lakers should know by now how to game plan against Frank Vogel’s team.
• For the injury report, the Lakers list Anthony Davis (bilateral Achilles tendinopathy and hip spasms) and LeBron James (left ankle peroneal tendinopathy) as questionable. While Jarred Vanderbilt (right foot soreness), Chrtisian Wood (left knee effusion), Cam Reddish (right ankle sprain) and Gabe Vincent (left knee surgery) are out.
• As for the Suns, Jusuf Nurkić (ankle) and Bradley Beal (hamstring) are questionable while Damion Lee (knee) remains out. *will update*

You can follow Nicole on Twitter at @nicoleganglani