The Lakers pulled out the win late Sunday night, pulling away early in the 4th while maintaining a solid eight-to-ten point lead the rest of the way. The Lakers received big games from LeBron James and Anthony Davis, helping them to beat the Rockets as Russell Westbrook struggled with only 10 points.
Here’s our recap of Game 2, as the series is now even at 1-1.
LeBron James opens the fourth strong
The King came out in the 4th like a bat-out-of-hell, dropping two monster dunks including a nice one on the fast break from the hands of Alex Caruso. He also came out of nowhere for a block from behind on Russell Westbrook, quickly setting the tone early in the quarter that he was not going to let the Lakers lose this game.
LeBron scored eight of his 28 points in the 4th quarter, ending with 11 rebounds and nine assists as well. He shot efficiently from the field, making 10 of his 17 field-goal attempts while getting to the free-throw line for 10 total attempts. He was even impactful on the defensive end, ending the game with four steals and two blocks.
LeBron can still turn it on when he needs to.
The Rockets catch fire beyond the arc
The Lakers lost by 15 in Game 1 of this series, and that was even without a barrage of threes from the Rockets. They made 14 of 39 three-point attempts, a 35.9% mark that is modest for a team that thrives off of the three. They came out firing tonight, ending the game with a powerful 41.5% (22-for-53).
The good news is that the Lakers were able to still win by eight points even with the Rockets doing so well from three. In addition, although the Lakers shot efficiently from three (44.4%), they only made 12 total three-pointers as the Rockets should have come away with the win from 10 more made threes. However, the Lakers may not be lucky enough to enjoy another 10 point game from Russell Westbrook again, as he’s usually not someone who contributes to the Rockets’ three-pointers anyways.
Anthony Davis leads the Lakers
Although LeBron James helped polish off the game at the end, Davis led the Lakers most of the way ending the game with 34 points and 10 rebounds with an extremely efficient night from the field (15-of-24 FGs). He was attacking P.J. Tucker and the other smaller Rockets defenders early and often, getting into his bag of moves much more early in his possessions than he was in Game 1. That was an improvement he stated that he needed to make, allowing him to get into much more cleaner lay-ins and mid-range jump shots.
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The Lakers will return to try and take the series lead on the Rockets on Tuesday. See everyone then!
