For Thursday night’s preseason finale at Crypto.com Arena between the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns, both LeBron James and Kevin Durant will start for their respective teams. Since December of 2018, the aforementioned NBA greats have not competed against one another.

The last time these two stars shared the court was James’ first season in Los Angeles and Durant’s final season with the Golden State Warriors.After James and the Cleveland Cavaliers lost to Durant and the Warriors in the NBA Finals for a second consecutive year, they faced off against each other on December 28.

Both guys will see limited action in the final preseason game as the coaching staff prepares for the regular season.

Even after all their bravado, the NBA champion Denver Nuggets are determined not to succumb to the typical post-title blues.Nuggets players and coach Mike Malone have relentlessly mocked the Lakers ever since their team defeated them.

After sweeping the Nuggets in the Western Conference finals last year, James and the Lakers will open the new season on the road against them on Tuesday.

Suns deeper than expected? Bench beats LeBron James, Anthony Davis

On Thursday night, Kevin Durant and LeBron James squared off for the first time since December 2018 at Crypto.com Arena, but the Phoenix Suns came out on top. The visiting team won by 23 points over the home team, who were missing both Devin Booker and Bradley Beal.

Even though the 35-year-old Durant only played 17 minutes, he scored 21 points to lead all players. Although Phoenix would not have won without his goals, they would have done so anyhow.The other 102 points were scored by 13 different Suns players. Despite playing only 16 minutes, Saben Lee managed to score 17 points. With the bench unit, Nasir Little scored 11 points, and Yuta Watanabe scored 12.

Eric Gordon scored 10 points to become the only other Suns starter in double figures, behind only Durant.

The Suns had 15 players in the game, but only Udoka Azubuike (5 minutes) failed to score against the Lakers.Rоb Pelinka, general manager оf the Lоs Angeles Lakers, has kept the team’s recоrd perfect while bоlstering it with several new stars.

However, the Lakers were top-heavy in their final preseason game with James (19), Davis (15), and Austin Reaves (14) scoring a combined 48 points.While Taurean Prince scored three points in 17 minutes of activity, Lakers starting point guard D’Angelo Russell only scored eight points in 21 minutes of action.

The Lakers’ Rui Hachimura and Christian Wood both performed poorly off the bench in their team’s season opener on Tuesday against the Denver Nuggets, the defending NBA champs.