At T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Monday night, the Los Angeles Lakers earned their first victory of the preseason by defeating the Brooklyn Nets by a score of 129-126.

 

Austin Reaves made his first appearance of the preseason and did not waste any time as he scored the first basket for his squad with a pull-up three-pointer in transition. The Nets were able to respond by going on a 7-0 run, which allowed them to grab the lead for a short period of time. However, the Lakers and D’Angelo Russell were able to strike back with their own triples, which allowed them to regain control of the game.

While Rui Hachimura entered the game and instantly scored five points to give Los Angeles a seven-point advantage, D’Angelo Russell began to shoot well from the field and took a number of confident three-point shots. Despite this, the Nets embarked on a run of their own to close out the first quarter, and the Lakers entered the second quarter losing by a score of 35-34.

Early on in the second quarter, Anthony Davis started to make his presence known as he maneuvered his way below the basket for a reverse layup and then backed that up with a block inside the paint. The Los Angeles Lakers improved their play on both sides of the court, which allowed them to grab their first lead of more than ten points of the evening.

Taurean Prince displayed some of his offensive versatility by laying the basketball on the floor, and Jaxson Hayes added his own layup to make the score 19 points to the good. Near the end of the first half, Brooklyn went on an 8-0 run, but Los Angeles entered the break with a comfortable lead of 75-61 thanks to their excellent shooting from deep.

As a result of Darvin Ham’s decision to replace them with Christian Wood, Gabe Vincent, and Hachimura to start the third quarter, James, Davis, and Russell’s evening came to an end. The Lakers were without their primary scoring threats, which allowed the Nets to make a sluggish but steady comeback and tie the game at 82 points each.

In the middle of the period, Cam Thomas and Reaves traded baskets; nevertheless, Los Angeles was able to regain the lead thanks to some more hot shooting from long range. Late in the third period, Wood made the executive decision to take matters into his own hands by calling his own number offensively. As a direct result of this, the purple and gold went into the fourth quarter leading 110-102.

The Lakers were able to maintain their lead despite playing with their bench players because their defense was playing at a higher level. Ham used more players from his bench and gave more playing time to his younger players, but his team was still able to maintain their lead of 120-112 points.

However, Maxwell Lewis did manage to chuck down a dazzling dunk that got the Las Vegas crowd up and roaring. Unfortunately, the rookies started to go cold from the field. In the latter minutes of the match, there was a lot of back-and-forth action, but Los Angeles was able to hold on for the victory.