If offense is something you, the NBA viewer at home, enjoys, then this series between the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets is not for you. It was another dogfight between these two teams on Tuesday night, with the Lakers securing an ugly 101-94 win over the Rockets to stretch their lead to 2-0 in the best of seven.
The game was sloppy. It had edge. It even had Kevin Durant! The Rockets forward returned from his knee injury to suit up for Game 2. Unfortunately for Houston, they still had a major problem even with him back.
Durant got off to a hot start, helping mask some of the Rockets' offensive problems. However, the longer the game went on, and the more the Lakers tightened up on him, the others were forced to try and win the game. The results were not pretty.
The Lakers were more than happy to sacrifice some easier looks to Rockets shooters in exchange for limiting Durant. That led to Houston shooting a dreadful 7-of-29 from beyond the arc in their desperate search for non-KD offense. For those counting at home, that is 24.1 percent.
Rockets' glaring shooting woes are making it easy for the Lakers defense
While the Rockets were stinking it up from dowtown, the Lakers found themselves a clear edge in that department for the second game in a row. They took almost the same number of shots, hoisting 28 attempts. However, Los Angeles connected on 13 of those takes, making 46.4 percent.
Game 1 was not all too different. The Rockets shot better in that one, hitting 11-of-33 from deep for 33.3 percent. Even so, it paled in comparison to what the Lakers were able to do at 10-of-19 on triples for 52.6 percent.
This was always going to be a mismatch the Lakers should have been capable of exploiting. Ever since Luke Kennard arrived at the trade deadline, Los Angeles became a capable unit with the long ball.
The Rockets may have shot a top-10 percentage from 3 in the regular season, knocking down 36.4 percent. However, that came on the third fewest shots taken in that department on average, only putting up 31.5 deep ball attempts per game.
This makes the defensive gameplan for the Lakers all too simple. Let the other guys, not named Durant, beat you, and let them do it taking long shots.
If the Rockets get into once of these games yet again in Game 3, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves may just be allowed some extended rest in the wake of a quick series.
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