{"id":472238,"date":"2025-12-26T06:14:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T06:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/472238\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T06:14:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T06:14:17","slug":"rockets-lakers-takeaways-l-a-certainly-doesnt-have-the-look-of-a-title-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/472238\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets-Lakers takeaways: L.A. certainly doesn’t have the look of a title threat"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Houston Rockets celebrated Christmas in style, delivering an overwhelming and dominant outing in a 119-96 thrashing<\/a> of the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Amen Thompson led six Rockets in double figures with 26 points in the win, which ended a brutal six-game road trip \u2014 three overtime losses plus a 20-point blowout at the hands of the woeful Clippers\u00a0\u2014 on a strong note to improve to 18-10 on the season. Luka Don\u010di\u0107 scored a team-high 25 points for the Lakers, but also committed six of their 16 turnovers in a game L.A. never led, and in which Don\u010di\u0107, LeBron James and Co. only briefly even appeared competitive.<\/p>\n

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Here are three takeaways from the Rockets\u2019 commanding performance at Crypto.com<\/a> Arena:<\/p>\n

So, about that Lakers defense \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

After consecutive blowout losses to the Clippers and Suns, L.A. head coach JJ Redick offered a curt reply to an inquiry as to whether his Lakers \u2014 who entered Christmas ranked 25th in defensive efficiency \u2014 had shown enough of a willingness to dig in and grind it out on the less glamorous end of the floor:<\/p>\n

L.A. brought a similar flavor of indifference for much of its Christmas Day matchup with Houston. The Lakers repeatedly allowed Rockets ball-handlers to beat them at the point of attack, get into the paint and generate good look after good look, seemingly whenever and wherever they wanted:<\/p>\n

Houston barely needed five minutes of game time to build a double-figure lead that it would never relinquish, ending the opening frame with 37 points on 24 possessions \u2014 a torrid 154.2 offensive rating. For reference, the best offense in the NBA, the Denver Nuggets, scores 125.6 points-per-100<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe two words of the day were \u2018effort\u2019 and \u2018execution,\u2019\u201d Redick said after the game<\/a>. \u201cI feel like when we\u2019ve done both of those things at a high level, we\u2019ve been a good basketball team, and when we haven\u2019t, we\u2019re a terrible basketball team. And tonight, we were a terrible basketball team. And that started, legitimately, right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the Lakers briefly made a push midway through the second quarter, cutting the deficit to four at 48-44 following 3-pointers by Don\u010di\u0107 and Jarred Vanderbilt, the Rockets calmly stuck to their guns, scored 15 points in the next three minutes and pushed the lead back to 10 at halftime. After the Rockets opened the third quarter with buckets on four straight possessions, Redick shifted tactics and dialed up a zone, which resulted in a pair of stops \u2026 which Houston promptly rendered irrelevant by grabbing offensive rebounds, scoring second-chance points and extending its lead even further.<\/p>\n

Redick rifled through his Rolodex in search of different combinations that might offer a level of physicality and defensive activity that could short-circuit Houston\u2019s smoothly operating machine. The combo of Vanderbilt and Marcus Smart helped key an 11-4 second-quarter run that constituted L.A.\u2019s best basketball of the night; a unit flanking Don\u010di\u0107 and whisper-quiet center Deandre Ayton with Vanderbilt, Smart, gap-plugging connector Jake LaRavia (one that had played just 10 possessions together all season<\/a> prior to Thursday) showed intermittent sparks.<\/p>\n

For the most part, though, the Lakers\u2019 Christmas fizzle looked remarkably similar to their Emirates NBA Cup quarterfinals loss to the San Antonio Spurs: a team top-heavy with scoring skill but light on size, athleticism and defensive steel proving unable \u2014 or unwilling \u2014 to hang with a younger, stronger, more physical and more relentless opponent.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe don\u2019t care enough right now,\u201d Redick said<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s the part that bothers you a lot. We don\u2019t care enough to, like, do the things that are necessary. We don\u2019t care enough to be a professional. We had it. We had it. I always say this about culture, I always say this about a team being a functioning organism: It can change like that. We don\u2019t have it right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

What the Lakers do have, in Don\u010di\u0107, James and Austin Reaves (who sat out the second half with what the Lakers called left calf soreness<\/a>, a worrying note considering he just missed three games with a calf strain<\/a>) is enough high-end scoring and playmaking to produce a top-flight offense. If they can\u2019t provide a higher class of resistance against similarly skilled opponents, though, that won\u2019t be enough \u2014 especially not if the goal is to make a deep postseason run in this Western Conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a matter of making the choice, and too often, we have guys who don\u2019t want to make that choice,\u201d Redick said<\/a>. \u201cAnd it\u2019s pretty consistent who those guys are. I told the guys: Saturday\u2019s practice is going to be uncomfortable. The meeting is going to be uncomfortable. I\u2019m not doing another 53 games like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Possession is nine-tenths of the law<\/strong><\/p>\n

Coming into Christmas Day, the Rockets were the NBA\u2019s sixth-best team at winning the possession battle on a night-to-night basis, according to analysis by Jared Dubin at Last Night in Basketball<\/a>, averaging three more offensive trips per game than their opponents. They pressed that advantage early and often Thursday, pulling down four offensive rebounds against some lackadaisical Lakers boxouts and forcing six turnovers in the first quarter alone.<\/p>\n

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That allowed them to take five more shots than L.A. in the opening stanza \u2014 a key factor in the Rockets opening that early double-digit lead and keeping the Lakers at arm\u2019s length.<\/p>\n

The Rockets finished with nearly as many offensive rebounds (17) as the Lakers had defensive rebounds (18) and monster edges in second-chance points (24-10), points off turnovers (23-11), points scored per possession in transition (1.33 to 1.13) and total field-goal attempts (90-77). Getting that many more bites at the apple, and capitalizing on them so effectively, is how the Rockets can shrug off 25 from Luka and the Lakers shooting 50.6% as a team overall \u2014 and how a Houston team that takes fewer 3-pointers per game than any other squad in the NBA<\/a> can still boast one of the league\u2019s most potent and efficient attacks.<\/p>\n

Many hands make light work<\/strong><\/p>\n

When they\u2019re at their best, the Rockets come at you in waves on the offensive end. It\u2019s Thompson (26 points on 12-for-19 shooting with five assists) repeatedly getting downhill into the paint, and Alperen \u015eeng\u00fcn (14 points, 12 rebounds, four assists) meanspiritedly pirouetting his way into all manner of infuriating flip shots and needle-threading drop-offs, and Kevin Durant (25 points on 8-for-14 shooting, eight assists) barely seeming to break a sweat as he gets to his preferred spots in the midrange or pops a trail 3 in an unsuspecting defender\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n

When they\u2019re really scary, it\u2019s because those headliners have help: Jabari Smith Jr. (16 points on nine shots) drilling jumpers spotting up and running off pindowns, Reed Sheppard (13 points, 5-for-10 from the floor) snaking the pick-and-roll to get to CP3-style elbow pull-ups in rhythm, and Tari Eason \u2014 an absolute menace on both ends of the court, just fully Grinching it up \u2014 ripping and running and terrorizing.<\/p>\n

On some nights, the lack of a proper half-court organizer of a point guard will rear its ugly head; on others, though, the sheer tonnage of Houston\u2019s athleticism, ferocity and talent will dispense with any such concerns. On those nights, these Rockets can straight up run you out of your gym. Ask the Lakers. They can tell you all about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Rockets celebrated Christmas in style, delivering an overwhelming and dominant outing in a 119-96 thrashing of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":472239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[8611,8435,17378,75664,1582,276,7197,3372,3134,3136,8609,25875,67078,128309,3359,6276,2961,3363,224,3141,5337,3365,25873,9276,3138,8607],"class_list":{"0":"post-472238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-alperen-sengun","9":"tag-amen-thompson","10":"tag-austin-reaves","11":"tag-basketball-team","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-california","14":"tag-clippers","15":"tag-deandre-ayton","16":"tag-denver-nuggets","17":"tag-houston-rockets","18":"tag-jabari-smith-jr","19":"tag-jake-laravia","20":"tag-jarred-vanderbilt","21":"tag-jj-redick","22":"tag-kevin-durant","23":"tag-l-a","24":"tag-la","25":"tag-lebron-james","26":"tag-los-angeles","27":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","28":"tag-losangeles","29":"tag-luka-doncic","30":"tag-marcus-smart","31":"tag-reed-sheppard","32":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","33":"tag-tari-eason"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115784401776626622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}