{"id":666184,"date":"2026-03-19T06:03:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T06:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/666184\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T06:03:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T06:03:23","slug":"luka-doncic-40-points-and-lebron-james-30-lead-lakers-to-win-over-rockets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/666184\/","title":{"rendered":"Luka Doncic (40 points) and LeBron James (30) lead Lakers to win over Rockets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HOUSTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The combination of Luka Doncic and LeBron James was overpowering and enthralling for all to see during the Lakers\u2019 dynamic 124-116 win<\/a> over the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Doncic was a rebound shy of a triple-double with 40 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds.<\/p>\n

James was a force with 30 points, missing just one of his 14 shots and adding five rebounds and two assists.<\/p>\n

They were the main reasons why the Lakers<\/a> extended their winning streak to seven straight games and helped them take the three-game series over the Rockets, 2-1, winning both games here, one on Monday night.<\/p>\n

The beauty of the night was when Doncic threw a no-look lob pass to James for a dunk and then when Doncic drilled a three-pointer with 58.4 seconds left for a 120-111 Lakers lead.<\/p>\n

Doncic yelled at the crowd and ran down court shaking his head. When the Rockets called a time out, the Lakers bench all ran over to Doncic, hugging him, slapping him and James nudging him for a job very well done.<\/p>\n

The Lakers now have a 1-\u00bd game lead over Minnesota for the third seed in the Western Conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n

James was fouled by Jabari Smith Jr. on a break-away layup, forcing him down on the court and holding his right elbow.<\/p>\n

James was awarded two free throws with 5:39 remaining, making one to tie the score at 105-105.<\/p>\n

Doncic then took over when James went to the bench for a rest.<\/p>\n

Doncic\u2019s jumper gave the Lakers a two-point lead and later his pass to Rui Hachimura for a corner three-pointer gave the Lakers one-point lead after Amen Thompson had scored for the Rockets<\/p>\n

Doncic drilled a three-pointer for a 113-109 Lakers lead with 3:12 left.<\/p>\n

James had a steal in the first quarter and then threw down a dunk with Alperen Segen chasing him, leading to James to stare at Segun as he ran back down court, drawing cheers from the fans in awe at witnessing the 23-year veteran still making highlight plays at 41.<\/p>\n

Early in the second quarter, James gave the fans even more to cheer about, catching a high lob pass from Marcus Smart and throwing down a one-handed dunk to oohs and aahs.<\/p>\n

\"Luka <\/p>\n

Luka Doncic celebrates after making a three-pointer against the Houston Rockets in the first half.<\/p>\n

(David J. Phillip \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

James wasn\u2019t done, taking a pass from Jake LaRavia and throwing down another dunk later in the second quarter that brought the crowd out of its seats. That play gave the Lakers a 13-point lead.<\/p>\n

James was at it again with a tip dunk off an Ayton missed shot late in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

By the end of the first half, James had made all eight of his shots and scored 18 points in carrying the Lakers to a 12-point lead after the first 24 minutes of the game.<\/p>\n

James was still dizzying while playing in his 1,610th career NBA game, leaving him one shy of the all-time record held by Robert Parish (1,611).<\/p>\n

The Lakers not only had to deal with a Rockets team looking for revenge from Monday night\u2019s loss, but also had to contend with a Houston team that got All-Star center Segun back after missing the previous game with low back pain.<\/p>\n

Even more, the Lakers knew that rebounding would be an issue for them just like it was in the first game.<\/p>\n

But the Lakers also knew their defense was strong and their offense was powerful.<\/p>\n

That was the case in the first quarter, when the Lakers opened a 35-26 lead behind 13 points from Doncic, eight from James and six from Ayton.<\/p>\n

Their defense forced the Rockets into four turnovers, two by Kevin Durant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think regardless of what our coverage is, we just got to do a better job of boxing out, like actually physically boxing out and not just looking at a guy and then turn and look at the ball,\u201d Lakers coach JJ Redick said pregame. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to have some contact. That hurt us. We still won scoring-opportunity (points) by seven, I think, because we did such a good job of forcing them into turnovers. And I thought, offensively, when we used our throw-a-heads, we got some really good stuff in transition. (We) missed some threes in transition. Overall, we were 16 points under expected from three. There was segments of the game where I didn\u2019t love what we did offensively, but that\u2019s the nature of playing this team. They\u2019re gonna muck things up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The combination of Luka Doncic and LeBron James was overpowering and enthralling for all to see during the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":666185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,281,15190,281781,281783,2961,8604,3363,224,5337,3365,55874,281782,17946,449,24566,5565,5613,78355],"class_list":["post-666184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-court","tag-dunk","tag-game-lead","tag-highlight-play","tag-la","tag-lakers","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-luka-doncic","tag-monday-night","tag-no-look-lob-pass","tag-pass","tag-point","tag-rebound","tag-rockets","tag-second","tag-three-pointer"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116254330358455686","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666184","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=666184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}