Thursday night was the last game of the preseason for the Los Angeles Lakers. They played their division foe Phoenix Suns at Acrisure Arena in Palm Springs.

These two teams will play each other again next week in the second regular season game. However, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham used the last game of the preseason as a practice game, playing his healthy starters and normal rotations for almost two and a half quarters.

Suns coach Frank Vogel, on the other hand, sat Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, two of his best backcourt players. Kevin Durant, on the other hand, played and faced LeBron James in a game for the first time since Christmas Day 2018, though.

Even though L.A.’s players played well, it was expected that the bench would have a hard time in the second half without a point guard, and that’s what happened. The Suns easily won 123–100. Even though the Lakers finished the preseason with a 2-4 record, the most important thing is that no one got hurt.

Davis scored the first basket for the Lakers by finishing a nice lob after D’Angelo Russell passed the ball back and forth. Davis finally made another easy dunk to put L.A. ahead 7-0, which meant Vogel had to use his first timeout right away.

Durant made two free throws right after the timeout to get the Suns on the board, but Austin Reaves made an open 3-pointer for the Lakers, who stayed in charge early on thanks to some nice ball movement.

Davis, meanwhile, was playing great defense. In the first eight minutes of the game, he blocked five shots. After that, though, the Lakers’ attack slowed down, and the Suns came back to take a 24–20 lead into the second quarter.

When Jaxson Hayes came off the bench and scored two baskets, he gave the Lakers much-needed energy. James then scored a three-pointer and a transition layup to give the Lakers the lead again. In the meantime, Durant got things going for the Suns with nine straight points.

Davis finally came back into the game and scored a triple and a three-point play to get things back in order. After that, the Lakers found their three-ball. LeBron made two and Reaves made one to bring the lead back to ten points. Durant and Eric Gordon did help the Suns make a short run at the end of the half, which cut the Suns’ lead to 58-54.

Durant was done for the night at halfway. As expected, the Laker starters only played for a short time in the third quarter. It wasn’t easy for them to get ahead, though, so the last 18 minutes of the preseason ended with a fight of the benches.

Because they were missing all of their point guards, the Lakers had a tough time ending the third quarter, and the Suns started to take over. After Keita Bates-Diop beat the buzzer in the third quarter, they extended their lead to 16 points, 89–73.

The Lakers were short on players who could handle the ball, so Max Christie got some good practice at point guard to finish the game. He even scored a few points, but the Lakers took a huge loss.