As the saying often goes, this 119-115 loss to the Houston Rockets was “a tale of two halves” for the Lakers.
In the first half, the Lakers looked like a team either experiencing the after-effects of undefeated nightlife in Houston or that had gotten a little too high on their own supply of “The Lakers are back and playing defense, baby!!!” coverage over the last couple of weeks. Even acknowledging the obvious age and athleticism advantage that anybody would have expected for Rockets, the Lakers spent the opening 24 minutes in a much slower (and seemingly more disinterested) gear.
Various Houstonians streaked downcourt in transition off every Laker turnover or missed shot. The Lakers got crushed in the second chance points battle. (They recorded *none* before the second half.) Jalen Green scored 18 of his 33 total points in the FIRST QUARTER, inside and out, with precious little resistance from Lakers defenders.
Frankly, it felt lucky that the Lakers were only down 18 entering halftime. The game hadn’t even felt that close.
But something must have been effectively (or angrily) stated by JJ Redick in the visitor’s locker room, because the Lakers were a completely different team throughout the final 24 minutes. Especially defensively. (Redick made a curious early substitution, pulling Rui Hachimura for Dorian Finney-Smith, which could be a preview of Tuesday’s starting lineup in Dallas, and either way, was indicative of the more successful defense the Lakers coach was clearly trying to crank up.) The ball was moving to better effect. The rebounding became less lopsided. And the Lakers looked like a team that was capable of matching this upstart Rockets team bounce-for-bounce.
However, that disastrous start left the Lakers with too little of a cushion to absorb mistakes, and there were a few critical ones in the last couple of minutes.
LeBron James was called for an offensive foul with 38.1 seconds left in the game.
Down three with 5.1 seconds left, inbounder Max Christie (who I’d argue isn’t experienced enough for this job in crunchtime to begin with) either panicked or forgot the team had another timeout left, and turned the ball over trying a pass to LeBron. (LBJ, to his credit, tried to call timeout, but none of the refs noticed.)
A few seconds later, now down four and looking for a miracle, the ball was successfully inbounded to LeBron, who hit a three… that was wiped out because of Anthony Davis’ illegal screen.
In the end, the final score reinforced what’s been evident all season. The Lakers are a good team… but yet a “great team” (as Redick recently said he’s looking to coach).
Great teams have a high margin of error. The Lakers do not.
Are they capable of beating a team like the Rockets despite a halfa**ed first half?
Possibly.
But not nearly capable enough that you’d ever want to bet on them pulling it off.
