The Los Angeles Lakers closed out their road trip on Friday night, taking on the Phoenix Suns in the first game of the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament.
The Lakers welcomed Anthony Davis back to the lineup after a one-game absence, and it helped earn their first victory of the year as they beat the Suns 122-119. The win keeps the Lakers in contention to win Group A obviously with three more games still to play.
Darvin Ham opted to make a starting lineup change, inserting Cam Reddish for Austin Reaves to give the Lakers more size. It seemed to work early as Reddish came up with a steal and then hit a corner 3-pointer. The lineup change was understandable given how slow the Lakers have started, but they jumped out to an early 13-7 lead in this one.
In just his second game from returning for a back injury, Bradley Beal got off to a hot start for Phoenix to keep his team in it. Kevin Durant then went to work with a three-point play and suddenly the Lakers’ early lead was gone.
The Lakers’ energy level dropped from there and they struggled offensively while the Suns got going, stretching their lead to double-digits for the first time.
L.A. eventually went into the second quarter trailing 34-25 after LeBron James momentarily appeared to injure his leg. He was able to return though and he and Austin Reaves started to get the Lakers back in it with some nice playmaking.
As has been a theme all season though, the Lakers struggled to keep the Suns off the offensive glass and the latter kept their lead at double digits as a result.
Taurean Prince and D’Angelo Russell hit a few shots but the Lakers were otherwise ice cold in the first half. James started going into attack mode to end the second quarter and as a result, L.A. went into the halftime locker room trailing 63-55 after a Beal layup at the buzzer.
After a quiet first half, Davis kicked off the third quarter with a quick bucket and then James made a pair at the line to get the deficit back to four although that was short-lived with Jusuf Nurkic responding with five straight points.
LeBron got hot from there with back-to-back triples, doing everything he could to keep the Lakers in striking distance. Russell also continued his strong night, finding his teammates like Davis for some easy buckets.
But right when it looked like the Lakers were making some progress, Durant drilled back-to-back 3-pointers and a three-point play to get the Phoenix lead back to double digits. Luckily, the Lakers went into the fourth quarter trailing 96-79 after Reddish beat the buzzer with a 3.
Rui Hachimura and Reddish both hit triples to begin the fourth quarter before James found Reaves for a transition layup and all of a sudden the Lakers led for the first time since the first quarter.
The run continued out of a Suns timeout with another Reddish 3 before Eric Gordon made a layup to end it. Christian Wood got in on the action with yet another triple to extend the Lakers’ lead to five, forcing another timeout from Frank Vogel.
Durant helped get the Suns back on track with some big buckets, keeping things close for what was set up to be a fun finish.
The Lakers struggled to stop Durant in the midrange, but Reddish hit another huge corner triple to put his team up 118-113 with a minute to play.
The Lakers then got the stop they needed and Prince finished a layup to put the game on ice.
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