Midway through the third quarter, there was a soft buzz from the crowd, the kind of sound you might hear at a busy bus stop rather than at the home opener of an NBA title contender.
To some extent, you can’t blame people for reacting to what they saw.
But later that night, as game time approached, there was drama at the Lakers’ home court as the team powered by turnovers to score its first win of the season.
With the score tied, LeBron James broke through the Suns’ defense and scored directly through the basket. Then, one possession later, he did it again.
Basketball infused the game with energy, resulting in a 100-95 victory after the Lakers didn’t have their best players for much of the game.
In their first game of the season in Los Angeles, the Lakers struggled. After a sell-out offseason, the Lakers looked like a bunch of basketball strangers, with any semblance of identity sticking around once or twice and then disappearing.
But a fourth-quarter stoppage — the Suns shot 26.3 percent from the field and committed seven turnovers in one quarter — allowed the Lakers to erase a 12-point deficit. Kevin Durant scored a Suns-high 37 points.
Lakers guard Austin Reeves (top) and Suns guard Grayson Allen battle for the ball in the second quarter on Thursday.
(Wally Scully/Los Angeles Times)
Anthony Davis scored 30 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, and James also scored 21 points. James played 35 minutes, five more than the unofficial goal set by the Lakers’ coaches and medical staff this season.
While the Nuggets’ unity was blamed for the Lakers’ loss in Game 1 in Denver, more troubling issues like effort and toughness almost cost the Lakers Game 2.
The Lakers were killed on the rebound, and the Suns quickly scored more than a dozen points with offensive rebounds. The Suns even withstood Durant’s slow start with Devin Booker and Bradley Beal both sidelined with injuries, while the Lakers kept making outside shots.
It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that the Lakers defense started to get enough consecutive stops thanks to the efforts of Gabe Vincent and Christian Wood to gain some momentum and start running the ball.
The Lakers will face the Kings again on Sunday in Sacramento.
