What a Los Angeles Lakers play-in NBA Championship run could look like

#2 Phoenix Suns vs. #7 Los Angeles Lakers

Oddly enough, in all three games that the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns matched up one of either James or Davis was absent.

Our most recent look at the two teams came just a few days ago and the Lakers managed to take the victory behind an absolutely monstrous game from Davis.

Unfortunately for the Suns, that’s probably going to be the case for most of the series when these two teams meet each other.

When you take a look at the Suns’ roster, they just don’t have the size to put up a good enough fight against the Lakers. Even without running Davis at the five and taking advantage of DeAndre Ayton, the Suns will have their hands full with Andre Drummond hogging up the glass.

Keep in mind that they really don’t have an answer for James as well, unless they decide to throw Jae Crowder at him and at that point we’ve seen enough of James vs. Crowder to know that The King can win the matchup more times than not.

James and Davis should seemingly be able to get the shot that they’re looking for on offense which will only open up the floor for the rest of the LakeShow. If Suns will already most likely be trying to send extra bodies at the two of them, which is why surrounding them with shooters will be essential to the Lakers’ success in this series.

Frank Vogel will likely just let either of his two superstars go to work in the post, force the Suns to bring a help defender and then trust that James and Davis will find the open man.

The Lakers’ defensive versatility, particularly against guards, will yet again play a big factor in this matchup as the Suns primarily run their offense through Chris Paul and Devin Booker.

Paul is one of the greatest facilitators the league has ever seen and Booker has already established himself as one of the league’s premier scorers at just 24 years old.

However, Booker is similar to Curry in that he likes to operate off of a ton of screens and the Lakers have the personnel to limit that as much as possible.

Also, Vogel proved last postseason that he’s more than capable of making things tough on high-scoring guards such as Damian Lillard, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Jamal Murray.

The Suns just don’t have the size to really take down the Los Angeles Lakers and so this should be a pretty decisive series win for the LakeShow, effectively putting an end to the Suns’ first postseason berth since the 2009-2010 series and sinking his banana boat buddy’s championship dreams.

Result: Los Angeles Lakers in 5