{"id":275717,"date":"2026-05-02T07:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T07:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/275717\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T07:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T07:13:12","slug":"lakers-finish-off-rockets-in-one-sided-game-6-setting-up-clash-with-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/275717\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers finish off Rockets in one-sided Game 6, setting up clash with Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

There might have been some reasons for concern for the Lakers in a series they once led 3-0<\/a>. None of them was apparent Friday.<\/p>\n

With a 98-78 victory in Game 6, the Lakers finished off the Houston Rockets<\/a> for their first playoff series win in three years. Their reward will be a date with the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> in the Western Conference semifinals.<\/p>\n

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That series will start Tuesday. The San Antonio Spurs<\/a> will face the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> in the other West semifinal.<\/p>\n

The Lakers were coming off two straight losses at the hands of the Rockets, pushing them halfway to an unprecedented collapse. Game 4 was a one-sided defeat on the road<\/a>, Game 5 was close but no victory cigar<\/a>. Had it not been for the Rockets\u2019 galling collapse in Game 3<\/a>, Los Angeles<\/a> would have been the ones facing elimination Friday.<\/p>\n

Game 6 had no such headache. The Lakers took a double-digit lead early in the second quarter and never let it get back down to single digits. They still didn\u2019t have their usual offense with Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/a> still out, but LeBron James<\/a> kept doing what he\u2019s done all series: turn back the clock.<\/a><\/p>\n

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The NBA\u2019s all-time scoring leader finished with 28 points on 10-of-25 shooting, 8 assists, 7 rebounds and 3 turnovers, while Don\u010di\u0107 had his fun from the bench.<\/p>\n

Rui Hachimura<\/a> (21 points) and Austin Reaves<\/a> (15) were the only other Lakers players to score in double digits, but Deandre Ayton<\/a> did have a huge game on the boards with 7 points and 16 rebounds.<\/p>\n

The Lakers were short-handed throughout this series, but the Rockets felt the absence of Kevin Durant<\/a> \u2014 still out with an ankle injury<\/a> \u2014 even more. They shot 31.5% before the Lakers pulled their starters and should be very grateful to the Orlando Magic<\/a> for drawing away attention from their offensive woes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Lakers hoping to reverse recent history vs. Thunder<\/p>\n

Reaching the second round of the playoffs despite missing their MVP candidate in Don\u010di\u0107 for the entire series and their No. 2 player by points per game in Reaves for the first four games is an impressive achievement for the Lakers, even given the absence of Durant for Houston.<\/p>\n

The next round will be a different beast.<\/p>\n

The 2025-26 Rockets had their limitations at the best of times. The Thunder have lost a single game with their actual starters since March 1. And they\u2019ve steamrolled the Lakers at every opportunity.<\/p>\n

Here are the Lakers\u2019 four games against the Rockets this season.<\/p>\n

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The Lakers were missing at least one member of their big three for at least a part of each game, but that\u2019s still an 0-4 record against the defending champions, with an average margin of victory of 29.3 points.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no telling when Don\u010di\u0107 will return from his Grade 2 hamstring strain, but OKC was still an unsolvable problem for the Lakers with him on the court. If the Lakers are going to reach the Western Conference finals for the first time since 2023, they are going to need the biggest upset of the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There might have been some reasons for concern for the Lakers in a series they once led 3-0.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[23006,35407,56,58,57,4854,4846,23004,23008,9922,4646,6399,6382,6398,50576,1066],"class_list":["post-275717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-austin-reaves","tag-deandre-ayton","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-rockets","tag-kevin-durant","tag-lakers","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles","tag-luka-doncic","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-orlando-magic","tag-rui-hachimura","tag-san-antonio-spurs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}