Kent Bewley's News Story Collection

The Los Angeles Lakers began their middle of March road trip with a two-game set against the Houston Rockets, who were in fourth place and right literally behind them in the Western Conference standings. The Lakers won the first game of the set on Mon, Mar 16 with a 100-92 victory over the Rockets, setting up an important game on Wed, Mar 18 that would decide which team was able to secure the head-to-head tiebreaker in case both teams finish the regular season with the same exact record. Following a 36-point showing in the first game, Luka Doncic sought to lead the Purple & Gold to a crucial win over a potential playoff opponent.

The game started with some efficient scoring from both sides, but the Lakers held the early lead. Luka made a few threes while LeBron James had an amazingly efficient start to the night. A nine-point lead was amassed by the end of the first quarter and in the second quarter, LeBron made a couple of tantalizing dunks. Up by 13 points with less than nine minutes left to go in the half, things were looking pretty good for the Purple & Gold on this night. But Houston didn’t let the lead get much bigger as they relied on other sources for offense. Kevin Durant had a very inefficient first half, which was a continuation of his second half from the previous game. LeBron and Luka led the Lakers to a 12-point lead at halftime and things were looking swell heading into the third quarter.

But to start out the second half, the Rockets started playing better on both ends. They forced turnovers against L.A and Durant woke up on the offensive end. Houston finally retook the lead in the middle of the period and they were engaged with a close battle with the Lakers from that point onward. The Rockets had 37 points in the third after only 55 in the first half while holding the Purple & Gold to only 22 points, most of which were scored by James and Doncic. The fourth quarter was going to be another tight one.

The Lakers started the fourth quarter on a quick 7-0 run, with Austin Reaves getting involved in the offensive attack. The lead for Los Angeles was built up to six points before Houston went on a 9-0 run over a couple of minutes to reclaim the lead. But LeBron made a layup and got fouled hard on another attempt and he came falling down on his elbow, re-triggering the pain that he felt from a fall that had his elbow land down hard on the floor in a game against the Denver Nuggets two weeks beforehand. The King was alright and he made a free throw to tie the game up. A couple of big shots were made by Luka and the Lakers held a four-point lead with over three minutes left in regulation. Following a layup by Amen Thompson of the Rockets that cut the lead down to two, the Purple & Gold went on a scoring run that effectively ended the game. Doncic doled out a couple of close assists on alley-oop dunks to LeBron and Rui Hachimura. Then, Luka made an amazing three-pointer that extended the lead to nine and was a dagger on this game. The Lakers won by a final of 124-116, winning by the same amount as they did on Monday night at the Toyota Center.

Luka scored 40 points and had nine rebounds along with ten assists for a near triple-double. For his part, LeBron scored 30 points while making 13 of his 14 shot attempts. Deandre Ayton scored 16 and Reaves contributed with 14 points and eight assists. In spite of missing ten free throws and giving up a lot of points off turnovers to the Rockets, the LakeShow rode 15 made threes(seven of them by Luka) to victory along with solid defense themselves. Houston fell short again in spite of 27 points and ten assists from Alperen Şengun and 26 points from Thompson along with Durant having a good offensive second half.

The Lakers are now 44-25 on the season and are a few wins away from securing a playoff berth for the sixth time in LeBron’s time as a Laker and in Luka’s first full season in L.A. Now holding the head-to-head tiebreakers over the Rockets, Minnesota Timberwolves and Nuggets and being well ahead of the seventh-place Phoenix Suns, the Lakers could not have asked for better basketball during such an important stretch of games. Their road trip will continue against Eastern Conference opponents who are mostly good and in playoff contention. Their remaining schedule in March will be versus teams from the East and in April they will face all Western Conference teams in the lead-up to the playoffs. That stretch includes two games against the Oklahoma City Thunder, who currently sit atop the West and are the first NBA team to clinch a playoff berth this season. The way that the Lakers are playing right now might potentially give them the confidence they need to potentially go on a deep run all the way to the Western Conference Finals and maybe even the NBA Finals. Time will tell whether they are truly that good, but a seven-game winning streak against teams who are mostly around the same record as they are is definitely a step in the right direction.