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Mics Caught Kevin Durant’s Defeated Message About Luka Doncic During Lakers-Suns

Kristen Wong

Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant (35) reacts against the Sacramento Kings during the first half at Footprint Center.
Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant (35) reacts against the Sacramento Kings during the first half at Footprint Center. / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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The Los Angeles Lakers are up big against the Phoenix Suns at halftime with a nearly 20-point lead over Kevin Durant and Co.

The Lakers have dropped their last four games but appear determined to right the ship Sunday, with star Luka Doncic stepping up while LeBron James continues to recover from a groin injury.

Doncic, who currently has 17 points, six assists and three rebounds at the half, hasn't wasted any time terrorizing the Suns while donning the Lakers' threads instead of his old Dallas Mavericks ones.

The Slovenian star guard hit a nasty step-back three over Durant early in the game and has generally made life pretty difficult for the Suns, who are sitting 11th in the West desperately looking to secure a play-in spot.

During the game, a mic'd up Durant had a sobering message for his teammates about how to guard Doncic:

"We're not going to stop [Doncic] from scoring, bro," Durant said on the bench. "We can't come into a game and just stop their best players from scoring. We gotta just make it tough on him. We can't give him 12 assists and 40 points though."

We'll see if Durant and the Suns can crawl their way back into this game in the second half.

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Kristen Wong
KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI in November 2023, Wong covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. Outside of work, she has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.

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