Los Angeles Lakers escape the Houston Rockets and win once again
By Ronald Agers
The bad from the Los Angeles Lakers’ win:
Anthony Davis’ early foul trouble.
AD had the makings of one of those 40-point, 20-rebound games as the Rockets frontline was either too small or too slow to even make the Lakers star blink. He had 12 points in the first five minutes before having to sit down with two fouls. After Davis was sent to the bench, things changed. Read on to see what changed.
The Lakers’ first-half defense.
The Houston Rockets struggled to score 85 points over the weekend. They couldn’t run an offensive set turning the ball over 28 times and couldn’t get back to stop the bleeding giving up 32 points to the Lakers off those miscues.
In the first half alone, Houston scored 70 points. Let that sink in.
They still turned the ball over with regularity which the Lake Show had no problems depositing points in on the other end, but they started knocking down shots from distance. They knocked down 8-18 from behind the 3 point line in the first half while shooting over 60 percent overall. In the last minute, the Lakers allowed two huge 3 pointers from Christian Wood and Jalen Green to make things dicey at the end.
Jalen Green didn’t get into foul trouble as he did on Sunday.
It was a letdown to any NBA fan to not be able to see the talents of the Rockets lottery pick as he got in foul trouble seemingly from the open tip. But this dude has a lot of talent and it was on display early and often in the first half. His 12 points in the first quarter gave the Rockets confidence early.
Jalen Green ELEVATED ⬆️ pic.twitter.com/CIASNBUQOL
— NBA TV (@NBATV) November 3, 2021
He had 18 points on 7-9 shooting in the first half alone after only tallying 7 points in the previous game. The Lakers had him on lock in the second half until the final moments of the game. He finished with 24 points and 5 rebounds.
Malik…Monk’s…confidence…is…gone!
He hasn’t scored a field goal in three games and now it looks like he doesn’t even want to look at the basket after playing so well in the preseason and at times early this season. His missed free throw in the final seconds put the Lakers in trouble and it almost cost them.