Lakers extend Suns’ struggles against elite teams

Suns coach Terry Porter said he wanted to use Thursday’s game with Los Angeles as a measuring stick for his team’s 13 games into the season.

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But the Lakers took that stick and smacked Phoenix over the head with it, showing the Suns that despite their spiffy record early on, they have a lot of work to do before they can measure up to the league’s elite.

The reigning Western Conference champs added an exclamation point to Phoenix’s nasty nine-day gauntlet through playoff contenders, running away from the Suns in the second half and cruising to a 105-92 win, proving the gap between the top two teams in the Pacific Division is far wider than the current 2½ games shown in the standings.

Now 8-5, the Suns lost back-to-back games for the first time this season and went 1-3 in a nine-day span against four elite teams — losing to Houston, Utah and the Lakers to go with a lone win over Detroit.

The Lakers stars struggled, Kobe Bryant led them with 24 points, but needed 23 shots. Pau Gasol managed just four points on 2-for-8 shooting, although he added nine assists and nine rebounds. But the vaunted Lakers’ depth more than made up for it.

Vladimir Radmanovic, who came into the game shooting 36.7 percent from 3-point range and was 2-for-12 in his last five games, burned the Suns by hitting his first five 3-pointers, while Lamar Odom, Trevor Ariza and Jordan Farmar combined for 34 points off the bench.

Phoenix’s stars weren’t any better. Amaré Stoudemire didn’t get a lot of touches in the first half and botched a series of point-blank shots in the second — needing 21 shots to collect 21 points. Steve Nash had six of his 10 assists in the first 10 minutes and had only eight points. But there wasn’t enough help behind them and 15 Phoenix turnovers led to 21 Lakers points.

Shaquille O’Neal had 15 points and nine rebounds, but also had four first-half turnovers and was asked to provide too much of the offensive creativity as the Lakers stayed home on the Phoenix shooters (44 percent) and had active hands poking at pick-and-roll attempts.

The Suns, who again played without Leandro Barbosa who remains in Brazil with his family, also lost forward Matt Barnes (12 points, seven rebounds in 31 minutes) to back spasms in the fourth quarter.

Nash, who came in with an average of just 7.5 assists a game, had six in the first 10 minutes. Three of them set up a trio of 3-pointers by Raja Bell (two) and Barnes (one), while another led to a three-point play by Stoudemire that gave the Suns a 24-18 lead at the 2:27 mark.

But that’s when Nash departed for rookie Sean Singletary and the deep L.A. bench pounced immediately. The Lakers reeled off the next 14 points with back-to-back Sasha Vujacic jumpers and an Ariza layup helping to build an eight-point lead.

The Phoenix reserves answered with a 12-2 run of their own and Singletary — getting the call instead of Goran Dragic at the backup point guard — put the Suns back in front with a 3-pointer with 7:25 left in the half.

But the Lakers ended the half with a 12-2 run of their own and pushed the lead to 14 late in the third quarter on back-to-back 3-pointers by Radmanovic and Derek Fisher, taking control from there.