The Los Angeles Lakers played their first NBA game of the season on Tuesday night, traveling to Dallas to play the Mavericks. This came after they won the league’s first in-season event in Sin City.

Even though there was strange tagging, all three of these players—LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and Luka Doncic—were able to play for their teams. Kyrie Irving and Jarred Vanderbilt, on the other hand, were both cut. The Mavericks beat the Lakers by a score of 127–125, dropping their season record to 14–10.

In the beginning of the game, both teams made some sloppy mistakes. Davis finally made a recovery with six seconds left in the game. The score was tied at six.

The Mavericks went on a quick 5-0 run before Taurean Prince of the Lakers made the first three-point shot of the game. Davis got his second foul and was sent to the bench early, which was a bad thing.

As expected, the Lakers’ attack did not work as well without James and Davis. Rui Hachimura scored five straight points after coming off the bench to help Los Angeles cut the first quarter lead to 34-26.

Tim Hardaway Jr. of the Mavericks got off to a great start. He kept going strong into the second quarter with another three-pointer before Austin Reaves answered with a layup. Because the Lakers’ defense was tight, they were able to cut into their lead while LeBron James scored freely.

Los Angeles could not stop Doncic from getting to the free throw line, though, so Dallas kept going with their run. Seth Curry made a long shot that put the Mavericks ahead by 13 points all of a sudden.

When the Lakers turned the ball over, it was easy for the Mavericks to score because they were so good from the 3-point line on. The Lakers were behind 71–61 at halftime, even though they scored six straight points to stay in the game.

Davis was walking around with what looked like a hip problem at halftime, but he went back into the game to start the third quarter. At the start of the third quarter, James was the best player for Los Angeles on both sides of the court. The Warriors were down by five points after James made a three-pointer and Davis made a baby hook. This made Jason Kidd call a timeout.

They went on a run at the end of the third quarter, which made their lead the biggest it had been since the game started. This was mostly because of Davis, who scored five straight points, one of which was a triple that beat the buzzer and put his team ahead 95–93 going into the fourth quarter.

James scored to make it 10-0 at the start of the fourth quarter. The run was stopped when Grant Williams and Dante Exum made three-point shots.

As the fourth quarter began, Doncic, Hardaway, James, and Davis were still in charge of their teams. They traded shots to tie the game at 108. Even so, Dallas scored five straight points after the Lakers made two mistakes, with Exum continuing to shoot very well from beyond the line.

Even though Doncic lived up to the hype, the Lakers still had trouble with other Mavericks players like Hardaway, Exum, and Williams.

Prince was the same for Dallas. In the last two minutes of overtime, he made a three-pointer that pulled the Lakers within four points. On the other hand, Exum used the Lakers’ repeated mistakes against them by dribbling into an open basket for his third straight corner triple.

The Lakers could not come back from that point on, which sealed their loss.