James, Lakers top Rockets
6-of-28 showing in decisive 3rd quarter includes 10 misses from distance and 11 in the paint
LeBron James scores 31 points to lead the West-leading Lakers over Rockets in showdown.
The Rockets were clicking as they had not for most of the past two weeks, but they had to know what was coming. The question was whether they could handle it. Though they should have held a larger halftime lead, they had led by as much as 11. Though it seemed certain the Lakers would hit back far harder than they had, the Rockets seemed ready to stand toe-to-toe.
The test of all that “collective spirit” they had said had been lacking, that might have seemed repaired when things were going well Saturday, was still to come. When it did, the Rockets crumbled and the Lakers soared to a 124-115 victory to the roaring and singing delight of Lakers fans who filled Toyota Center.
The loss was the Rockets’ third straight and fourth in five games. But this was not like the losses to the Grizzlies and Trail Blazers. When the best of the West took off, the Rockets had no answers and seemed to know it.
“It’s just the spirit, the spirit to fight when things start going a little wrong … to have the energy to push the next guy along,” forward P.J. Tucker said. “A couple bad calls, bad plays, turn the ball over, cool. Next play. So what. What’s next? To me, that’s what it’s all about.”
Instead, the Rockets could not solve the Lakers’ defense in the third quarter, making just 1-of-11 3-pointers and going just 5-of-16 in the paint. It all added up to their worst shooting third quarter (6-of-28) of the season and left them relying on technical free throws and Dwight Howard goaltending calls for more than a third of their points in the period.
With that, other recent issues returned. The transition defense deteriorated. The Rockets allowed a season-high 24 secondchance points. The Lakers went from down 11 less than two minutes before halftime to an 11point lead with two minutes remaining in the third quarter.
“We’re not playing well right now,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said. “We haven’t played well for about a couple of weeks. The only way you can get out of that … is to just play hard and put your head down and just go forward. It’s not fun for anybody, but we can get out of this.”
Things got so bad that when Kyle Kuzma fired an outlet pass after a missed James Harden 3-pointer, the Rockets were so slow in transition that Kuzma put in an uncontested putback on the other end. That gave the Lakers a 16-point lead, the game’s largest, with 5:41 left.
That began the long and loud chant of “Let’s Go Lakers” from much of the crowd, with large portions of the rest heading to the exits, the Rockets seeming to have lost their fight.
“We got to stay positive,” Russell Westbrook said. “Like I said the other day, in adversity what are you going to do? You got to look at yourself, stay locked in. It’s a part of the season. It happens. As a unit, as a team, we got to stay together and figure out the best way to put our best foot forward.”
But unlike in low-energy, mistake-filled losses to the Grizzlies and Trail Blazers, this was to be a “test,” D’Antoni had said. Though the Rockets did not see the Lakers at their best with Anthony Davis sitting out for a fifth consecutive game, they did not measure up when the Lakers picked up their defense and their pace.
While Westbrook and James Harden combined for 69 points, LeBron James answered with 31 points and 12 assists while finding help wherever he turned, even without Davis. Kuzma had 17 of his 23 in the second half. Danny Green and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had 20 each.
The Rockets other than their star guards combined to make just 17-of-47 shots (36.2 percent), even with a flurry of late buckets that came much too late. That allowed the Lakers to trap the ball out of Harden’s hands.
“We’re going through a tough time, obviously,” Harden said. “It happens to, I think, every team throughout the course of the year. But tough times don’t last long, especially for teams that are built for it. So we just got to continue to fight through it, find a way to continue to get better, keep grinding through moments like these.”