Pacific Notes: Okogie, JTA, Lakers, Fox

The Suns‘ last three games have represented reserve swingman Josh Okogie‘s three highest minutes totals of the season, and his doing his darnedest to capitalize on the extended run time, per Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports.

Okogie has gotten a bigger minutes load as a result to a variety of injuries up and down Phoenix’s roster. With Cameron Johnson and Torrey Craig both absent, Okogie has averaged 16.3 PPG, 6.7 RPG, 3.7 APG, 1.7 SPG, and a +14.7 plus-minus rating, in 25.7 MPG.

Bourguet notes that Okogie has especially shined defensively, a reality he himself has noticed and acknowledged.

“For me, it was just more so, like, ‘I’m not gonna get on the court scoring,’ you know what I’m saying?” Okogie said. “’Cause we had so many people who could do that on the team. So he needed me to be on the court to play some defense and lock somebody up.”

There’s more out of California:

  • Lakers backup small forward Juan Toscano-Anderson exited the team’s 126-113 loss to the Raptors last night with a sprained right ankle. According to Jovan Buha of The Athletic (Twitter link), the team announced that Toscano-Anderson is expected to miss at least the next two weeks due to the injury, and will be reevaluated at that two-week mark.
  • Following an exciting 8-2 run that seemed to salvage the Lakers‘ 2022/23 season, the team more recently has dropped two straight contests thanks to the injury absences of Anthony Davis (who played just eight minutes in the first loss), LeBron James (who only missed last night’s loss) and Wenyen Gabriel (who missed both games). Buha writes in a story for The Athletic that it has become evident the team needs additional help up front.
  • Kings star point guard De’Aaron Fox has been hampered by pain in his right foot for over a month, according to Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee. Fox’s shooting has taken a hit of late: across his past seven contests, the vet has made just 38.2% of his field goals and just 28.6% of his triples. According to Fox, there’s no risk of making the injury worse by playing, so he’s hoping to get used to tolerating it. “I’ve played well while it was hurting, so I’ll be fine,” he said.
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