By Paul Teetor
OK, so it was a chippy, choppy game and it got downright ugly all too often.
But boy oh boy, the drama level was off the charts Friday night in the Lakers 112-108 overtime win over the Houston Rockets.
Not only did the victory enable the Lakers to take a 3-0 stranglehold on the best of seven first-round playoff series, but for all practical purposes it ensured the Lakers will advance sooner or later to the second round.
No NBA team has ever come back from a 3-0 series deficit. A team has taken a 3-0 lead 159 times in NBA history, and 159 times that team went on to win the series. Indeed, only four of the 159 teams down 3-0 managed to force a game 7, and none of them came all the way back.
The Rockets managed to stay alive by winning game four Sunday night, but right now, the Rockets do not look like a team poised to make history – with or without their superstar, Kevin Durant.
But that game four loss makes Wednesday night’s game five a must-win for the Lakers. If they don’t close out the series in front of their home crowd, watch out for a wounded Rockets team that would love to make history against the Lakers.
The strange part of all this is that after missing the game one loss with a knee injury, Durant came back to play in game two Tuesday night and scored 23 points — but the Rockets still lost to a Lakers team without both Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.
Friday night Durant was back on the injured list, this time with a sprained ankle and with no timetable for his return.
This game may have been LeBron’s finest moment as a Laker, with the exception of the NBA title he led them to six long years ago. He played refuse-to-lose basketball, scored 29 points, inhaled 13 rebounds and dished out six assists.
Oh, and he hit a game-tying 3-point shot with 13.1 seconds left in regulation to help bring the Lakers back from a six-point deficit with less than 30 seconds to play in regulation. It was only the second time in NBA history that has been done.
And it was definitely point guard Marcus Smart’s finest moment as a Laker. He joined LeBron in playing ferocious defense, hitting crucial shots and making all the key plays down the stretch.
The Lakers controlled the game right from the start and led by as many as 15 points, carrying a lead into the second, third and fourth quarters. But they squandered their advantage big-time late in the fourth quarter as Lakers center DeAndre Ayton could not stop Houston’s All-Star center, Alperen Sengun, who finished with 33 points and 15 rebounds.
Behind Sengun’s post domination and point guard Reed Sheppard’s dagger three-pointer with less than a minute left in regulation, the Rockets had a six-point lead and firm control of the game until LeBron and Smart snatched it back from them.
First, Smart, a former NBA Defensive Player of the Year with the Boston Celtics, leaped and stole a cross-court pass that the Rockets were foolish to attempt. Smart was fouled when he got control of the ball and tried to shoot a 3-pointer. He hit all three foul shots to cut the lead down to three.
Then LeBron poked the ball away from Sheppard. The ball was recovered by the Lakers and ultimately ended up in LeBron’s hands. After pump-faking a Houston defender out of his sneakers, he sank a cold-blooded 3 pointer to tie the game and silence a roaring Houston home crowd that had been convinced just a few seconds earlier that the game was theirs.
With only 10 seconds left, the Rockets forced the ball into Sengun but this time the 6-foot-11 Ayton put up a stout defense and Sengun missed a short shot. The Lakers got the rebound and called a time out with one second left to prepare for a last-chance shot to win the game. LeBron caught the ball 25 feet from the basket, whirled and launched a three-pointer that appeared to be dead-on but hit the back of the rim and bounced out, barely missing.
By this time the Rockets and their fans were spooked by the lost lead their team had choked away and the Lakers had all the momentum. They won the overtime easily and suddenly, incredibly, they had a 3-0 lead in a series they were given no chance to win – including by All Ball — once it was made clear that Luka and AR would be out for the entire series.
Even more incredibly, something happened in the second quarter that could pay off big-time in the Lakers quest to keep LeBron for next season and beyond. After all, what team wouldn’t want a player who averaged 22 points, eight rebounds and seven assists this season, and just happens to be the second greatest player in history, behind only the incomparable Michael Jordan.
LeBron will be an unrestricted free agent this summer, and there has been rampant speculation that he is headed back to Cleveland, where he would have a better chance at winning an NBA title then he would with the Lakers.
LeBron has often said how much playing with his son Bronny means to him, and for the first time in Bronny’s two-year history as a Laker, it meant something to the team too.
Bronny was inserted into the game in the second quarter by Coach JJ Redick only because Luka and AR being out meant he had no else one to turn to off the bench. And for the first time in two years, Bronny actually looked like an NBA player, like someone who deserved to be in the game and not just a nepo baby getting a free ride on his pop’s celebrity.
First, with his defender playing way off him, he calmly swished a three-pointer. Then came the moment father and son will cherish forever: Bronny cut behind his defender, LeBron saw the play develop, and waited until the perfect moment to throw his son a lob pass that Bronny caught mid-air and then reversed for an easy lay-up without touching the floor.
It was a grand total of five points in nine minutes for Bronny, but they were five important points in a game so close that it went to overtime. And it says here that it cemented LeBron’s decision this summer to stay in LA with his son, his burgeoning Hollywood empire, and the $80 million mega-mansion/compound he is building in Beverly Hills. No word yet on when he might move in, but reports say he is building a guest mansion that Bronny is planning to live in.
Bronny’s emergence as a legit NBA player could not have come at a better time for him and for the team. When the Lakers last came to Houston, defeating the Rockets in back-to-back games, Rockets coach Ime Udoka taunted Redick, telling Redick to put Bronny in the game. At that time Bronny was strictly a garbage-time player.
Redick said it was gratifying to see all of Bronny’s hard work paying off on the court.
“We’ve kind of as a staff, been able to pour into, pour into Bronny, and we’re really excited with his growth,” Redick said. “I know Bron, for him, as a father, is super proud of the growth Bronny’s had over the last two years, and last night was a really cool moment in that second quarter.”
For LeBron, the opportunity to play in the playoffs alongside his son – even coming together for a meme-able moment when together they tied up Sengun for a jump ball – is always a “Wow,” internally, he said.
“Every moment, not just him but young players the amount of confidence that a young kid in our league can get from a postseason game is like, a regular season game would never, you will never get nervous from a regular season moment ever again when you play meaningful postseason games and postseason minutes,” LeBron said. “And Bronny has done that and I think that’s pretty cool for his career, for his confidence.”
And for the odds that LeBron will be back in the purple and gold next season.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com ER
