Lakers fooled around a little too much and suddenly Houston was granted the power to just jump on top of anyone but in the end the lead we built up over 3 and 4/5ths of dominating basketball was enough to overcome Houston’s late game surge. Frank Vogel granted LakerTom’s wish, Talen Horton-Tucker got some playoff burn and the Lakers are looking to close it out on Saturday. Good stuff.
- Lakers make the final adjustment: go full Lilliput. It was the Lollypop Guild vs. the Lullaby League, Willow vs. Tyrion Lannister. The Time Bandits vs. Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin and Strider (starring Anthony Davis as Aragorn II Elessar). There was no traditional center to start the game is my point. Markieff Morris replaced JaVale McGee (who, like Dwight Howard did not see the court) in the starting line up. The result was a pretty dominating three quarters of basketball. While some of what went down was aided by the incredibly lackluster Houston squad, there’s no denying that the Lakers put forth an excellent defensive effort that fueled their fast break and points in the paint advantage. While it didn’t unlock magical accuracy from three point land (we shot 9-30, 30%) we were able to better execute the trapping defense that has stalled out the Houston offense.
- Dominating the glass. It took a great team effort to dominate the glass tonight. It took Danny Green and Rajon Rondo fighting for 3 offensive rebounds apiece, LeBron battling for a team high 15 rebounds and a lot of boxing out. It took every one of those rebounds and effort points for us to survive the late flurry at the end. We lost our focus on those kinds of plays with about 7 minutes to go. The foot came all the way off the gas pedal and it turned out to be very fortunate that we had the cushion we did.
- Free Throw Blues. One of the reasons we coughed up the big lead was we stopped playing smart defense, started reaching and holding instead of moving our feet. James Harden shot 20, 4 more than the entire Laker team combined. The Lakers have been able to overcome the free throw discrepancy mainly because they’ve been romping in the paint. They need to keep that up for one more game.
- 62-24 is where the game was won. That was our advantage in the paint. Aided by our 19-2 advantage in fast break points the points in the paint will be looked back upon as our key to success. We got that advantage in a variety of ways, LeBron James doing his thing, Rondo cutting to the rim unguarded because…yeah…defense, offensive rebounding by the team, and a focus on getting to the basket emphasized by Vogel in the broadcast. While we Frank made the call to bench both his 7 footers (OK, Dwight’s always been more like 6’10”) we still won playing big, just in a small way.
- Talen Horton-Tucker! Give me that over J.R. Smith all day, every day. Maybe even over Waiters. Talen got his first bucket on one of our 9 makes from three point land. But his second was a thing of beauty. Driving right at James Harden the rookie showed no fear of the beard and juked the Rockets All-Star out of position before dropping a perfect finger roll through the net. A great moment for the second round pick of the draft. Another great example of the Laker G-League system. Most importantly: a validation of hard work and perseverance.
Got another dog-fight on Saturday. Even though we’re up 3-1 it hasn’t been an easy 3-1. Need to close it our on Saturday, don’t give Houston any more reason to hope. Go Lakers.
Good stuff, Jamie. Thanks.
Lakers going ‘small’ with a 6′ 10,” 6′ 9,” 6′ 8,” 6′ 6,” and 6′ 5″ players against the midget Rockets was not a fair fight. The harsh reality that became evident was the Lakers were a better ‘small ball’ or ‘skilled ball’ team than the Rockets, who got whipped even worse on the boards and in the paint. By the end of the game, they were intimidated to the extent they couldn’t make layups for fear LeBron or AD would block their shots.
Unlike Game 3, where we took away their threes, layups, and free throws, we fouled way too much but with a little help from the refs. Loved seeing THT get some burn. Kid played well on both ends. Hope we’ll see more of him going forward.
Have to give Frank Vogel five gold stars for starting Morris and committing not only to playing small ball players but more importantly playing small ball basketball with 5-out sets. We gave the Rockets a heavy dose of their own medicine and found a game changing offensive weapon against teams who try to pack the paint to limit LeBron and AD from attacking.
You have to have two dogs to have a dog fight. Lakers in 5 with a blowout on Saturday. Then bring on the Clippers.
Thanks as usual, Jaime. I am going to say it feels good to see THT get some minutes last night. This young man always has me beaming with a big smile every time he plays. He is fearless and knows how to play. I hope he gets more minutes as time goes on.
Your first paragraph is what still sticks in me. Yes, the Lakers fooled around a little too much and that has left a bad stench in an otherwise efficient game. For 3 and a half quarters, the Rockets had no other means of scoring besides their mammoth free-throw advantage that balooned to 39. Man, that can fill up an attic real quick. The free throw disparity was ridiculous, and it definitely helped the Rockets keep nursing their wounds while limping behind the Lakers for the majority of the game.
The Lakers played a masterful game and inflicted some serious damage in every statistical category before mysteriously relaxing in the fourth quarter as if they just ate a freshly killed impala for 3 quarters. Their stomachs full, they certainly looked like they don’t need the rest of the carcass, only to realize the prey still had some pulse left in it. It was completely an unforced error by them, and a wiser move would have been to run a final autopsy to make sure the prey didn’t have any sign of life left in it, instead of folding their arms and thinking it was over. This would have been a demoralizing and heart-stopping blowout had the Lakers not taken their foot off the gas.
Crushing them whole would have sent a stern message to these scrappy, 3 point-happy tenants in their backyard, but giving them any glimmer of hope would only embolden them and make their eviction unnecessarily difficult and unwarranted in the next game.
Of course, the Rockets will certainly try hard to stay another day rent-free by trying to force a game 6. But the Lakers should never have given them any hope in the 4th quarter last night in the first place. Instead, the Lakers missed out on the opportunity to give a tutorial on how to give a good spanking to a stubborn tenant. We Lakerholics would have loved to see nothing less than the Rockets walk off the court after the final buzzer looking dazed, confused and intoxicated after a thorough beat down. Here’s is hoping we can dispatch them in game 5.
Anyways, this was a great win and the Lakers certainly passed the small-ball test.
Thanks buba, I really appreciate this response. Great points about the lack of killer instinct giving the Rockets more life than necessary for game 5. Even with all those freebies of we take care of the rock we’re cruising, they never get within 5. Still, we won by double-digits so hopefully enough order was restored.
I think the Rockets are going to come out loose in their shooting and hard with their energy. They have to win, it’s less pressure on them and a little more on LA to close it out. We’ll see, should be a lot of fun.