LOS ANGELES_Lonzo Ball drove down the baseline and made a layup that put his team up by eight points late in the fourth quarter over the Phoenix Suns. Play stopped for a time out with 1:35 left in the game and his teammates rushed over to him, jumping and grinning, delighted at what he'd done.
Only one person wasn't smiling or leaping. Ball walked over, measured and emotionless.
"That's what team's supposed to do, pick you up," Ball said. "But there was more time on the clock. You can't get settled with anything in the league they come back too fast. We almost gave this one away but I'm happy we pulled it off."
In the second game of his NBA career, Lonzo Ball showed why his team fell in love with him six months ago. The Lakers beat the Suns, 132-130, behind a near triple-double from their rookie point guard. Ball finished the game with 29 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists. But no moment showed who he was more than one.
"I'm not calling him Kobe, but Kobe was the same way," Lakers Coach Luke Walton said. "As a teammate I knew not even to touch Kobe in those moments because Kobe was locked in. ... In those moments, the players that don't let the pressure get to them, they stay calm. I think Lonzo recognized that the game wasn't over. We had a lot of work to do still. Which is why I was yelling at the rest of the team to stop celebrating ... they're out there jumping around like the game's over and obviously it wasn't."
"I did notice Zo's face and how focused he was."
Brandon Ingram scored a career high 25 points on nine of 14 shooting for the Lakers, while Brook Lopez, Larry Nance Jr. and Kyle Kuzma also reached double figures.
From Ball, it was a performance that included the kinds of dazzling plays that got the Lakers' attention in the first place. His best might have been one that didn't tally on the score sheet at all. Late in the second quarter, Ball threw a full court pass, one that resembled a football pass, to Corey Brewer who was underneath the basket. Brewer was blocked from behind and couldn't score.
Ball's critics were many after Thursday nights' 108-92 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. But even before his much-stronger second act, he had one especially staunch supporter.
Naturally, that was his coach, Luke Walton.
"I think Lonzo's getting a bad rep for getting destroyed his first game," Walton said. "The guy, personally I thought he could have had a double-double with rebounds and assists. We didn't make any shots. He'll figure out when to get his shots. I thought he was fine last night. It's a good learning experience for everybody."
Walton's defense of Ball, delivered before Friday's game, echoed a message Walton delivered Thursday night, too. In Ball's debut on Thursday, Ball had three points on 1-of-6 shooting, with nine rebounds, four assists, one steal and one block. He was hounded all during his first game by Clippers point guard Patrick Beverley, who was physically and verbally aggressive with the rookie, which was no surprise to anyone.
Ball said after the game that he wished he was more aggressive with taking shots.
"I think I took six shots, that's not enough," Ball said. "I was one for six that's not a good percentage. Times I did pass up I was passing for good shots we weren't making them."
He didn't shy away from shooting on Friday night. Late in the fourth quarter, with their lead less than five, with Ball just two assists away from a triple double, he drove to the basket instead. The next time down the court he dished his ninth assist of the game, this one to Kyle Kuzma who finished with a finger roll off the backboard.
With 1:35 left in the game Ball scored on a driving reverse layup that put the Lakers up 130-122. During the ensuing time out his teammates ran toward him, jumping and grinning. Ball walked to the bench stone-faced.
Although Phoenix got close, it was too great a deficit for the Suns to overcome.
"Today I just had to do what I had to do to get the win," Ball said Friday night. "I had to shoot more shots, so that's what I did. It doesn't take me long to learn."
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