Los Angeles Lakers: 5 Lessons from win against Houston Rockets

Frank Vogel reaches his team and his defensive adjustments rendered Harden and Westbrook ordinary.

At the beginning of the contest it looked like James Harden was going to have a huge night. The Lakers were doing the one thing that is a cardinal sin defending the league’s leading scorer. That is fouling him and sending him to the free throw line. Harden was gifted 7 free throw opportunities in the first quarter alone. By halftime, Harden was well on his way to a big night with 17 points and 6 assists.

If you thought that was impressive, what Russell Westbrook was doing to the Lakers was basic bully ball. Westbrook bodied up numerous defenders in the post and with his patent drives to the hoop. He finished with 22 points on 8-for-10 shooting. Despite these two going off, the Lakers only trailed by 6 at the break.

Then Frank Vogel had a chat with his team at intermission and everything changed.

After trailing the entire first half, the Lake Show got focused and opened the second half with a 10-3 run to take their first lead of the game, 69-68. The run was topped off by two baskets from LeBron James. The second basket was in spectacular fashion with some assistance from JaVale McGee.

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This was the highlight to a 32-17 defensive lockup of the Houston offense. The explosion in the third quarter extended out to a nine-point lead into the 4th quarter. A lead that was in no danger of evaporating.

It just wasn’t just McGee and James on this defensive collaboration. Anyone that touched the floor contributed on defense for most of the game. It was mentioned by the ESPN broadcast team that if this was last year, the Lakers would be getting blown out by 20 points. But the defense kept things close. In the second half, deflections, blocks, steals and long rebounds started to fuel their fast-break attack and pace.

As for JaVale McGee, that blocked dunk on Capela is no accident. This is starting to become a trend. Remember what he did in the last game against Orlando?

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The Los Angeles Lakers will not lose to the Houston Rockets in the playoffs. They exposed Mike D’Antoni’s system that was on shaky ground to begin with. They harassed James Harden to the point that he was frustrated with constant double teams and limiting his 3-point opportunities.

Kyle Kuzma absolutely did a great job slowing down Russell Westbrook in the second half. He was limited to only 13 points after a dominating first half.

Sure, they both got over 30 points apiece, but they turned the ball over a combined 11 times and the rest of the team were basically non factors.