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• SUNS V LAKERS SCORE SERIES

Well, let's check in on how the Lakers' role players shot from the field in Phoenix:

SUNS V LAKERS SCORE SERIES

That's ancient NBA wisdom, and it's something lower seeds rely upon after starting playoff series on the road. Will the Lakers' role players ever start making their shots? It's a move Phoenix should at least consider for Game 4. The same might not be true of Paul, who is struggling get shots up and make cross-court passes. The Suns can rely on him successfully executing a game plan at the very least. He'll never be what a healthy Paul is, and the downgrade there puts the Suns at a serious disadvantage. For large stretches of this series it has felt as though they were playing 4-on-5 offensively. But the Suns can't keep pretending that he's healthy when he isn't. He's a Hall of Famer who is going to earn All-NBA honors this season. It would be blasphemous under normal circumstances to suggest that Paul shouldn't start. He gave the Suns 19 points and seven assists in Game 2, but perhaps more importantly, the Suns won his minutes by three points in that game and played the Lakers to a draw in Game 3 with Payne on the floor. He had the worst plus-minus on the Suns, but his backup, Cameron Payne, nearly singlehandedly made this game competitive in the fourth quarter after a barrage of 3-pointers. The Suns lost this game by 14 points, but they were outscored by 20 with Paul in the game. It's not as though these minutes are going well, either. He was down to under 23 in Game 2 after averaging over 31 during the season. He started Game 2, and he was again in the starting five for Game 3 after Suns coach Monty Williams called him a "full go" before the game. He returned to Game 1 quickly after his shoulder injury.

Three times in a row the Suns have, either directly or through the actions, claimed that Chris Paul was healthy enough to play. They won plenty of them last season with Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee at center, and they followed that same road map again in Game 3. They wanted to be able to play physical games like this. Remember, they signed Andre Drummond in the middle of the season largely because they were dissatisfied with Marc Gasol, a perimeter-oriented big, and Montrezl Harrell, who is only 6-8. It's an old-school style of basketball, but it's one that the Lakers play eagerly. The Suns, with Chris Paul clearly hampered, just couldn't manufacture points in the same way. They scored 58 points in the paint and another 26 at the free-throw line. When the going got tough, they were able to pound the ball inside and bludgeon their way into just enough offense to win the game.

Nobody could generate any good shots, and when they did, they just missed. Turnaround mid-range jumpers early in the shot clock. The playing style was straight out of the '90s. Yes, there was great defense involved there, but it went deeper than that. By comparison, the final 43 seconds of Thursday's Nuggets-Blazers Game 3 featured 75 percent as many as they combined for 21 points in that timeframe. The second quarter of this game featured a total of 28 points. There was an error processing your subscription. Here are the biggest takeaways from their Game 3 victory. Those numbers hardly stand up to James' typical postseason excellence, but in a physical, defensive-oriented game like this, it was all the Lakers needed to secure the victory. He led the Lakers with 34 points and 11 rebounds in this one while LeBron James, who got off to a slow start, picked things up with 16 second-half points to go along with nine total assists. If Anthony Davis keeps this up, the Lakers will have little trouble doing so again this time around. In the first two rounds last season, the Lakers lost Game 1 before sweeping their opponents the rest of the way. In fact, the Lakers are hoping that history can repeat itself the rest of the way.

With a 2-1 series lead and another game at Staples Center looming between these two teams on Sunday, the defending champions have given themselves a chance to take a commanding 3-1 lead. It certainly wasn't pretty, but the Los Angeles Lakers are right back where they wanted to be after a 109-95 Game 3 victory over the Phoenix Suns.