The present-day Lakers-Suns rivalry seems to spring from profound mutual disgust. This is best glimpsed in microcosm, via the "rivalry" between LeBron James and Dillon Brooks, two hammy fellows who love to pout and push each other around. Over the course of Sunday's Lakers victory, the duo reheated a beef that dates back at least the 2023 postseason. "I poke bears," Brooks, then on the Grizzlies, said at the time. He also called James "old."
Since that juncture, he's only gotten older, and both players have changed in role. James continued his steady, graceful descent out of the league's elite. Brooks, one of the best defensive wings of his era, has been promoted to an aesthetically brutal but decently effective iso scorer, as he soaks up usage for a shorthanded Phoenix team. Some things never change, though: Put them on a court together and these two personalities will always clash in a range of strange, tedious, and funny ways. "He likes people that bow down," Brooks said earlier this month. "I don't bow down." Yesterday's game was enough to produce a 10-minute beef video, for those who want to relieve every cheap shot, mean-mug, and campy flop. Or you can just cut to the possession that reveals the pure duality of Brooks and possibly determined the outcome of the game.
The Lakers led 113-111 with 28.5 seconds in regulation. Lakers guard Marcus Smart brought the ball up the floor and, instead of chewing up clock, had a miserable layup attempt swatted away by Ryan Dunn, starting the fast break for the Suns. Devin Booker missed a pull-up three, but collected his rebound and sent it to Dillon Brooks, who made his own three to reclaim the lead for Phoenix, 114-113. This could have been a triumphant moment for both Brooks, who had hit his third three of the quarter, and the Suns, who had clambered out of the 20-point deficit they faced earlier in the frame.
Instead, it segued into perfectly on-brand self-sabotage. Seconds after hitting that go-ahead three, Brooks ran up and got in LeBron's face, and was assessed a technical foul. Having earned his first technical foul just 90 seconds into the game, he was thus ejected with 12.2 seconds left to play. James missed the technical free throw. But on the next offensive possession, finally free of the haranguing Brooks, James shot a three and a sloppy Devin Booker closeout earned him the free throws that would put away the game.
Los Angeles took a 116-114 victory on the road. "He’s going to compete. I’m going to compete,” James said of Brooks after the game. "We’re going to get up in each other’s face. Try not to go borderline with it. I don’t really take it there. But we’re just competing and did that almost all the way to the end of the game." These two teams have already played twice this season thanks to the NBA Cup; they will play three more times across the rest of the season, and will presumably push their theater-kid antics to new extremes.
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