The Houston Rockets played without Kevin Durant for the second straight game and third time overall in the first round, and this time they won without him.<\/p>\n
Amen Thompson finished with 23 points and seven assists, and the No. 5-seeded Rockets avoided a sweep in the Western Conference playoffs by defeating the No. 4 Los Angeles Lakers 115-96 on Sunday at Toyota Center to force a Game 5.<\/p>\n
Thompson, Alperen \u015eeng\u00fcn (19 points), Tari Eason (20 points) and Reed Sheppard (17 points) sparked the Rockets in the third quarter, helping them turn a 9-point halftime lead into 25 points in the third. It was midway in that quarter that Lakers center Deandre Ayton, who had 19 points and 10 rebounds, got ejected with a flagrant 2 foul after striking \u015eeng\u00fcn in the head with his left forearm.<\/p>\n
LeBron James struggled, finishing with 10 points on 2-for-9 shooting and eight turnovers. He added nine assists and four rebounds. The Lakers played again without two of their best players, Luka Don\u010di\u0107 (left hamstring strain) and Austin Reaves (left oblique strain).<\/p>\n
The Rockets bounced back after Friday\u2019s 112-108 overtime loss at home in Game 3. With the Lakers holding a 3-1 series lead, they travel home to play the Rockets on Wednesday at Crypto.com Arena.<\/p>\n
Here are our immediate takeaways from Houston:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Houston fights back<\/p>\n
The Houston Rockets have a lot of work to do before anyone should believe momentum has fully swung in their first-round series against the Los Angeles Lakers. Even after Sunday\u2019s 19-point blowout, Houston has a long way to go to dig itself out of the 3-0 hole it put itself in to begin with.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s no doubt one thing has shifted over the last two games: Houston\u2019s defense is operating at an elite level, even without its leader, Durant. The Rockets have held the Lakers to 21 points or fewer in four of the last six quarters, excluding overtime in Game 3. They\u2019ve also begun generating turnovers at a remarkable rate against a Los Angeles team still missing its two leading scorers, Don\u010di\u0107 and Reaves.<\/p>\n
In Sunday\u2019s win, Houston recorded 17 steals, tying a franchise playoff record. Eason delivered his best game of the series, finishing with 15 points, seven rebounds and five steals. He drew the primary assignment on James and helped limit the NBA\u2019s all-time leading scorer to 10 points and nine assists on 2-of-9 shooting. James also committed eight turnovers for the second straight game.<\/p>\n
The Lakers are still overwhelming favorites to win the series, and it still could end in Game 5 when the teams return to Los Angeles on Wednesday. But the Rockets are getting back to what they do best: suffocating teams on the defensive end \u2014 Will Guillory, Rockets writer<\/p>\n
Back to L.A.<\/p>\n
The Lakers hoped a slight amount of pressure would send the Rockets quietly into the offseason \u2014 that early aggressiveness against Houston\u2019s weaknesses might mask some of their own. Those hopes evaporated quickly, though. The Rockets are not satisfied with going meekly into summer.<\/p>\n
Instead, Houston exploited the Lakers at all their weak points. The Rockets hounded ballhandlers, played with more speed and athleticism and benefited from a Lakers team whose heavy legs after Friday\u2019s overtime win struggled to make shots.<\/p>\n
Now the series shifts back to Los Angeles with Houston knowing it can beat this version of the Los Angeles Lakers, whose offense has gone cold. The Lakers might still win the series, but they know it won\u2019t be handed to them \u2014 it will have to be earned. \u2014 Dan Woike, Lakers writer\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Rockets played without Kevin Durant for the second straight game and third time overall in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[5050,1055,355,99],"class_list":["post-608706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-houston-rockets","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}