The Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up the preseason on Thursday night when they hosted the division rival Phoenix Suns at Acrisure Arena in Palm Springs.
Even though these teams will square off again in the second regular season game next week, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham used the preseason finale as a dress rehearsal, playing his healthy starters and regular rotations for essentially two-and-a-hald quarters.
Suns head coach Frank Vogel, on the other hand, rested his star backcourt of Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, although Kevin Durant did play and squared off in a game against LeBron James for the first time since Christmas Day in 2018.
Despite a strong showing from L.A.’s starters, the bench predictably struggled without a point guard on the floor in the second half and as a result, the Suns ran away with a 123-100 victory. The Lakers finish the preseason at 2-4 although more importantly, they ended the night without any further injuries.
Davis got the scoring started for the Lakers, finishing a pretty lob on a give-and-go from D’Angelo Russell. Davis eventually finished another easy dunk to put L.A. up 7-0, forcing Vogel to burn an early timeout.
Durant got the Suns on the board with a pair of free throws out of the timeout, although some nice Lakers ball movement led to an open Austin Reaves 3-pointer as the Lakers remained in control early.
Meanwhile, Davis was putting on a defensive clinic with five blocks in the first eight minutes of the game. However, the Lakers’ offense slowed down from there and the Suns clawed their way back in it to take a 24-20 lead into the second quarter.
Jaxson Hayes came off the bench and brought some much-needed energy to the Lakers with a pair of buckets, and then James got in on the action with a triple and a transition layup to regain the lead. Meanwhile though, Durant started to get going for the Suns with nine straight points.
Davis eventually returned to the game and restored order with a triple and a three-point play. The Lakers found their three-ball from there with LeBron connecting on two and Reaves hitting one to get the lead back to double digits. Durant and Eric Gordon led a little Suns run to close the half though, cutting their deficit to 58-54.
Durant’s night was over at halftime while the Laker starters, as expected, played a short stint in the third quarter. They weren’t able to gain much separation, however, so it was a battle of the benches to close out the final 18 minutes of the preseason.
Missing all of their point guards, the Lakers predictably struggled to close out the third quarter as the Suns began to take control. They built their lead all the way up to 16 at 89-73 after Keita Bates-Diop beat the third quarter buzzer.
With the Lakers short on ball-handlers, Max Christie got some valuable reps at point guard to finish out the game and was able to knock down a few buckets in the blowout loss.
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