HOUSTON — As Austin Reaves was inside of the visitor’s locker room at Toyota Center, thinking about a response to explain the defensive effort required for the Lakers to beat the Rockets 100-92 on Monday night, a teammate a couple of lockers to his left chimed in.
“Luka was locking s— up,” Luka Doncic quipped, of course, referring to himself.
The same sentiment applied to the entire team.
It took a team effort to hold the Rockets to 92 points, the fewest amount of points a team scored against the Lakers this season, with each stop mattering as the Lakers also struggled offensively.
Their scoring total was the fewest amount of points they’ve had in a win, and marked just the third time in 21 instances this season they won a game after scoring fewer than 110 points.
If Monday’s game was earlier in the season, or even a couple of months ago, the Lakers probably lose, allowing their offensive success to dictate their defensive effort and progress.
That wasn’t the case Monday.
“It shows that we’re willing to get in the trenches and grind it out, which we probably couldn’t say for us a couple months ago,” Marcus Smart said. “We want to show we can get in those trenches and we can do the things, those little dirty things to help us win such as taking a shot to the face, elbow to the face, being physical, never backing down. So I’m very proud of us.
“Obviously we got a long way to go. We got to turn around and do it again. But that’s something we can build off of.”
The result may not always be what it was against the Rockets: 35 second-half points allowed. Fourteen steals, which is tied for the second-most they’ve had in a game this season.
Twenty-four turnovers forced, a season-high for the Lakers, including 17 in the second half.
“We can be really good – we all know it,” Smart responded when asked how good the Lakers can be if they have defensive performances like Monday’s. “Our offense is top of the top, very talented. So adding some defense like this, it makes us a really dangerous team.”
Kevin Durant, who had seven of those turnovers including six in the second half, said he lost the game for the Rockets in light of the Lakers mixing up their defensive coverages against him and incorporating double teams when he had the ball above the break before a screen could come.
“He’s one of the greatest players we’ve ever seen play,” LeBron James said. “Obviously you got to try to show him different looks, try to keep him off-balanced. And when he shoots, hope he misses. He doesn’t miss many shots.
“We did a good job of having a gameplan but also just switching up our pitches. You can’t show a great like that too many of the same coverages throughout the whole game. He’ll get a feel for it. We did a good job of just switching up the pitches.”
Monday’s results aren’t sustainable, even with the Lakers being on a six-game winning streak and having won nine of their last 10 games.
And Wednesday’s rematch between the Lakers and Rockets at Toyota Center will show that.
But the Lakers are aware of what time of the year it is. And they know that if they not only want to be a higher seed in the playoffs, but also win multiple rounds, they’ll need sustained effort, focus and execution on the defensive end of the floor.
Monday was a step in the right direction.
“Our problem is staying consistent, right?,” Smart said. “That’s something we’ve been working on. That’s something we’re everyday improving on. And we understand it and we’re gonna try to continue to improve and get better on that end.”
