HOUSTON — The Lakers’ 135-119 road loss to the Houston Rockets was the latest example of an issue that’s plagued them for the last 1½ months: whenever it seems like they’re about to have a breakthrough in their season, they have a game that leaves them back at .500.
Saturday’s double-overtime victory over the Golden State Warriors, the Lakers’ fifth win in seven games that put them over .500 for the first time since late December, looked like it could have been the start of that breakout.
But then the Lakers (24-24) turned in a mostly abysmal defensive performance against the young, athletic Rockets (22-24) at the Toyota Center, continuing their trend of being between two games below .500 and a game above .500 for the last month.
LeBron James (23 points, 10 assists), D’Angelo Russell (23 points, five assists) and Rui Hachimura led the comeback attempt, cutting a 30-point third-quarter deficit to 10 late in the fourth, but it wasn’t enough to make up for their early struggles.
The Lakers struggled in nearly every area defensively: they allowed 68 points in the paint (54 in the first three quarters), 19 second-chance points (13 in the opening three quarters) and 29 fast-break points (25).
The result was a 94-64 deficit with 7:34 left in the third and 108-84 at the end of the quarter.
Already missing defensive ace Cam Reddish (sprained ankle), the Lakers played most of the game without the defensive-minded Jarred Vanderbilt after he was ejected early in the second quarter. He received two technical fouls after making contact with Rockets wing Dillon Brooks (17 points).
The lineup of James, Russell, Hachimura, Max Christie and Jaxson Hayes cut the deficit to 116-96 with 7:37 left in the fourth, with Austin Reaves (six points, five assists) subbing in for Christie at that point, before the Lakers cut the deficit to 10 (121-111) on James’ pull-up 3-pointer with 3:54 remaining.
But their shotmaking fell off from there, missing their next…
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