"LeBron aún no ha decidido si seguirá jugando. La opinión general, tanto en torno a LeBron como en la liga, es que jugará al menos una temporada más. El resultado final de Lakers será un factor determinante en el futuro de LeBron."-Shams Charania pic.twitter.com/G4wU1Ral5M— YostinNBA (@YostinNBA) March 16, 2026

Take the horrible idea of expansion out of the equation, Lebron’s not anywhere near rich enough to even hold a minority ownership role unless it’s purely symbolic. Throw in all the toes he and his team have stepped on along the way, and I doubt he’s ever approved.

FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

Adou Thiero is dominating the G League.
The Los Angeles Lakers have only given Adou Thiero 106 minutes of NBA action as a rookie, but the dominant performances in the G League should be making head coach JJ Redick reconsider. The purple and gold have won five straight and are gearing up for the playoffs. They lack athleticism and versatile defenders, which could be the exact area where the rookie steps in. It would be a difficult leap to make in year one, but the 21-year-old is quickly proving too good for the developmental league.

Over his nine games with the South Bay Lakers, Thiero averaged 15.2 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.1 steals, and 0.9 blocks in 21.8 minutes per contest. He is shooting 62.5 percent from the field and 50.0 percent on his 3-point tries. The 6’7 wing has been a two-way force, and looks like he’d fit perfectly off the bench in LA.

Coach Redick made it clear this is a development year for Thiero. He won’t get much time with the Lakers, but his impressive play should be changing that. The Lakers want to contend and need a variety of options to win four playoff series. Giving Thiero a shot may quickly provide dividends and fill a hole in LA’s roster. The rookie is proving he’s ready, and coach Redick can’t ignore him forever.

Adou Thiero’s G League performance is getting the Lakers’ attention

The rookie has struggled to stay healthy. He missed all of summer league recovering from a late-season injury and has dealt with multiple problems during his rookie season. The Lakers are bringing him along slowly, but his minutes are slowly trending up in the G League.

It could be the perfect time to try him in a minimal bench role to gauge his impact. His athleticism, defense, and versatility could be significant. The Lakers have a crowded wing room with Jarred Vanderbilt currently out of the rotation, but Thiero could quickly pass him and others by continuing to make shots. LA needs true 3-and-D options. The rookie has fit the bill in the G League and is improving daily.

Austin Reaves made the Lakers’ focus crystal clear after Saturday’s massive win over the Nuggets. They want to compete for a championship right now. Against a young athletic squad like the Thunder or Spurs, the purple and gold could use a springy 6’7 wing to get stops. Thiero is their only hope to fill that role.

Redick is against trying this, but his story may quickly change in the postseason. Nobody wants that to be Thiero’s first real opportunity. He has virtually only played in NBA garbage time as a rookie. The Lakers should throw him a few games now to see what they’ve got. His G League play proves that, even if the franchise refuses to accept this reality.

Los Angeles Lakers fans should be excited about Adou Thiero’s future. Rob Pelinka traded up to acquire him, and his strong G League returns suggest the franchise may have found something. He must make shots to fit next to Luka Doncic.

So far, so good. Now, it is all about proving it at the NBA level. Head coach JJ Redick can’t ignore Thiero forever. Expect the youngster to make the most of his shot whenever it comes.

FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

#6
Los Angeles Lakers

Last Week:10↑
Record: 42-25

OffRtg: 116.9 (8)
DefRtg: 115.9 (20)
NetRtg: +1.1 (15)
Pace: 99.4 (20)

The Lakers are playing their best basketball of the season and have won eight of their last nine games. They are alone in third place in the Western Conference.

Three takeaways:

Nine days ago, the Lakers had lost 12 of their last 13 games against the top 10 teams in the league. But they’ve now won three straight, holding the Knicks, Wolves and Nuggets (offenses that rank third, 12th and first, respectively) to just 107.5 points per 100 possessions over those three games. That has them, finally, out of the bottom 10 on defense for the season.

Luka Dončić leads the league in usage rate (36.4%), and it’s been higher (38.5%) as he’s averaged 38.2 points, 9.8 rebounds and 8.4 assists over the Lakers’ five-game winning streak. He’s shot 41.4% from 3-point range over his last 27 games, up from just 31.6% through his first 28, though he went inside the arc for the overtime game-winner against the Nuggets on Saturday. That was just his first field goal attempt to tie or take the lead in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime this season.

The context with the Lakers’ improvement over the last few weeks is that they’ve played 15 of their last 18 games at home, and they’ll now embark on a six-game road trip. They don’t have nearly as big a home-road differential as they did last season (the biggest in the league), but they are just 7-10 on the road since mid-December.

Coming up: The trip begins with two huge games in Houston, with the Lakers having been clobbered by the Rockets in the first meeting (on Christmas). Then it’s on to Miami, where LeBron James is just 6-17 (2-4 with the Lakers) as a visitor.

Week 22: @ HOU, @ HOU, @ MIA, @ ORL

1. Thunder
2. Spurs
3. Celtics
4. Pistons
5. Knicks
6. Lakers
7. Nuggets
8. Rockets
9. Cavaliers
10. Timberwolves
11. Magic
12. Raptors
13. Suns
14. Heat
15. Clippers

FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

MARCUS SMART WAS scanning Anthony Edwards’ shooting line in the box score as he slumped in a chair in front of his locker. It was March 10, moments after the Los Angeles Lakers had defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 120-106, jumping from fifth in the Western Conference playoff race to third.

As Smart reviewed it line by line, he suddenly perked up, his exhaustion turning to something else: a sparkle of satisfaction.

Edwards, the Minnesota Timberwolves’ 24-year-old superstar, had scored just 14 points and went 2-for-15 from the floor — including 0-for-5 in the 23 possessions Smart guarded him.

The same Edwards who tormented the Lakers’ wing defenders last spring on his way to averaging 26.8 points in the lower-seeded Wolves’ five-game gentleman’s sweep of L.A. had been stifled by Smart, the former Defensive Player of the Year who joined the purple and gold on a discount deal months after that first-round upset.

While the win represented a glimmer of hope for this year’s Lakers squad that so far has displayed too much inconsistency on both ends to be feared as a top contender in the coming playoffs, it meant so much more for Smart.

He wasn’t supposed to still be locking up All-Stars at age 32.

Not after his last two injury-riddled, irrelevant seasons in Basketball Siberia.

He played 20 games for a 27-win Memphis Grizzlies team in 2023-2024 and 15 games for an 18-win Washington Wizards squad a year ago, while his former team, the Boston Celtics, soared to a title without him.

And he certainly wasn’t supposed to be holding on to the stat sheet with his right hand, which he had come dangerously close to losing eight years ago.

All of which set up Smart’s attitude for this season — one he has pushed the Lakers’ star trio of LeBron James, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, and the rest of the roster, to adopt: If he can change the trajectory at this stage of his career, after what he has been through, who is to say the Lakers can’t change theirs for the last couple months of the season?

“We’re tired of hearing people talk s—, basically,” Smart told ESPN. “I know I am. And if you’re a competitor, if you have any type of competitor in you, you’re going to be tired of that too. So you want to try to prove ’em wrong.”

DESPITE PLAYING 56 games for the Lakers so far, and leading them with a team-best plus-minus of plus-209, the most consequential shot of Smart’s career in L.A. still came as a visitor.

It was Jan. 23, 2018, and the Celtics, then the No. 1 team in the East, were on the road to play the Lakers, then the No. 11 team in the West.

Former Lakers guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had gone to the line with 5.7 seconds remaining and L.A. up by one and missed both free throws, with the second clanking off the rim and into Smart’s hands.

Smart, who already had 22 points in the game, took the rebound and dribbled frantically up the court until he got to the 3-point line, where he pulled up for 3 at the buzzer.

His shot hit the front iron and rimmed out, and the Celtics lost the game 108-107.

Later that night, at the team hotel, he replayed the shot in his mind and frustration boiled over.

He punched at a picture frame in his room and, this time, he didn’t miss, shattering the glass and leaving a 5-inch shard wedged inside the flesh of his palm.

“I got rushed to the ER and lost a lot of blood,” Smart told ESPN. “I passed out. … That’s how much I lost.”

When he regained consciousness, after receiving 20 stitches, Smart realized the severity of his wound.

“The doctor looked at me in my eye and told me, ‘I don’t know how you still have use of your right hand,'” Smart said. “‘You should honestly be thanking God every day.'” The piece of glass that had sliced into his hand was just millimeters from severing its use entirely. “They said it laid perfectly in between every tendon in my hand without damaging anything,” Smart said. “And they had to leave the extra piece in, because they said it will cause more damage if we go get it out.”

Smart missed 11 games before he was back on the court, helping Boston reach Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals that season before losing to James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Celtics reached the postseason in all nine seasons Smart was there, including a run to the 2022 NBA Finals to cap his DPOY campaign, before they lost in six games to the final glory run of the Golden State Warriors’ dynasty.

That next year, Boston lost to the eighth-seeded Miami Heat in the 2023 conference finals, and the team retooled, sending Smart to Memphis in a three-team deal that landed Kristaps Porzingis on the Celtics.

It was there, in Memphis, that Smart began to lose his grip — figuratively and literally — on his career.

In January 2024, he ruptured a tendon in his proximal interphalangeal joint — where the finger bends — ending his season.

“I’ve had two dislocations with torn ligaments in two of the fingers,” Smart said. “I’ve had glass in my hand. I’ve torn ligaments on my right thumb and had surgery there. I dislocated four out of my five fingers in total … my whole right hand just has been through a lot. So to be honest, I’m blessed to even have my right hand.

“For six years after the incident with the glass, I still had glass in my hand and I played with it. And there would be times where because of that, my hand would go numb. A lot of times, a lot of games, I couldn’t control it. I had to play and there were a lot of times when I’m shooting the ball and just, I had no feeling in the arm, the hand.”

Meanwhile, Memphis had bigger problems. Ja Morant, suspended for the first 25 games of 2023-24, went on to play just nine games, leading a roster so riddled with injuries that 33 different players suited up for the team at some point that season.

The Grizzlies missed the playoffs — the first time in Smart’s career he was on a team that failed to qualify for the postseason — while his former team went back to the Finals to face Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks. “I was watching every bit of it,” Smart said. “Does it hurt? Of course it hurts because you were the one there from the start before 2014, when Avery Bradley was still there, you guys were in the rebuild and so you watched everything grow. You were there when the seed was planted and everything. So it definitely hurt.”

The start to his next season in Memphis was even harder.

Over the team’s first five games, Smart averaged just 5.6 points on 23.5% shooting (16.7% from 3), and the Grizzlies stumbled out to a 2-3 start.

After an ankle injury sidelined him for two weeks, Smart returned and Memphis went 10-2 in its next 12 games before he suffered a partial tear of the proximal extensor hood of his right index finger.

Around this time, Smart says, he felt a shift in how the Grizzlies organization treated him.

He says he felt pressured to play through it.

“I wanted to be 100%, to give everything I got,” Smart said. “As I’m still working out and getting ready, they’re just like, ‘No, your doctor said you’re ready now.’ And I’m like, ‘I hear what my doctor said, but … it’s how I feel. Yes, surgically the finger is fine. But physically, no. The finger is still weak. I’m still strengthening it. This is my dominant hand.’ So, they didn’t want to hear it and they just kept saying, ‘You need to play.'”

Furthermore, during his rehab, Smart heard “a rumor going around that people said I don’t want to be here,” he said, despite actions that would suggest the contrary — from giving customized boxing gloves to his teammates, to his wife inviting the roster to his birthday party, to writing personalized holiday cards and stuffing them with gift cards for all the staff.

After a 21-game absence, he returned to the lineup Feb. 5, 2025, on the road against the Toronto Raptors.

His hand still didn’t feel right — he went 0-for-6 — but Memphis outscored Toronto by five points in the 18 minutes he was on the floor in the win.

What happened next made him feel like the “scapegoat” for a franchise in flux, Smart said. The following day, he was traded to Washington.

When reached by ESPN about Smart’s claims, the Grizzlies had no comment.

The deal was part of a three-team trade with the Sacramento Kings. Memphis had to include a first-round pick in what essentially became a salary dump, to get off the remainder of Smart’s $20.2 million contract for 2024-25 and $21.3 million for the following season.

The maneuver allowed Memphis to avoid luxury tax implications with its planned extension for Jaren Jackson Jr.

“The Marcus that you got intel on from Memphis was probably not as consistent with the Marcus that he was in Boston and in his entire career,” a Wizards source told ESPN.

“I think a lot of things went into that. But at the core, we knew who he was as a person and felt really comfortable adding him to a group. And he exceeded expectations in the short amount of time he was with us.”

Smart credits the Wizards for how accommodating they were to him during the 2½ months he spent with the team.

“Washington was great,” Smart said. “I just had to get healthy. … That was my main thing.”

Smart reached a buyout agreement with the Wizards in July to become a free agent, giving back $6.5 million of his 2025-26 contract according to ESPN’s NBA front office insider Bobby Marks.

And then the Lakers came calling.

L.A. HAD LIMITED options to upgrade its roster coming off that playoff loss to the Wolves.

Outside of trading a future first-round pick, the Lakers’ only avenue to reshape their roster was opening up the $14.1 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception by not re-signing Dorian Finney-Smith, plus the biannual exception.

Deandre Ayton and Jake LaRavia split the MLE, and Smart — who was recruited with a phone call by Doncic — got the biannual, agreeing to a two-year, $11 million deal, with a player option on the second year.

He says he wanted to prove that despite being 12 years into his career, his last two seasons were anomalies, not a downward trend.

When he arrived in L.A., he had a conversation with coach JJ Redick about the role he hoped to occupy.

Redick recalls the conversation.

He was at a Fini Pizza in Amagansett, in the Hamptons, and left the restaurant to take the call.

“I told JJ, ‘I’m going to go out here and give you everything I got,'” Smart said. “‘I just ask that if I do earn it, then let me have it. Don’t play too many politics.’ And that’s all I asked, and that’s all you can ask.”

Redick said there were three things he wanted to get across to Smart, now that he had cleared waivers from Washington and was deciding on his next destination. “It was, ‘We need you. We need your defense. We need your voice,'” Redick said. “The second part of that was, ‘I know you because I’ve played against you and I’ve competed against you. … You’re at your best when you’re playing for something. If you come here, we can be playing for something.’ And he agreed with that.”

And the third? “‘You’re going to play,'” Redick said he told Smart. “‘I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but I’m very confident that if you’re at your best, you’re going to play a lot.'”

Redick kept his word, starting him 49 games as Smart has averaged 9.6 points, 2.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.4 steals per game, and living with his 40.3% shooting from the floor and 34.0% from 3 in large part because of the Lakers’ 111.1 defensive efficiency with Smart on the floor. It’s 117.7 with him off this season.

Smart has drawn 19 charges this season, tied for the second most in the NBA, which is already more than the 16 he drew during his DPOY campaign — and there’s still a month to go in the regular season.

“He competes every night,” Reaves told ESPN. “It’s not always pretty, but his competitive level’s going to be at an all-time high every single night. And you need guys like that. I think he’s the one that sets the example for us on the court to go out there and play as hard as we possibly can, because you know he’s going to do that.

“When he’s doing that, every single night flying around, it makes you be accountable to the effort that you bring.”

On Saturday, moments after the Lakers had defeated the Denver Nuggets 127-125 in overtime, Smart didn’t want to talk about his strip of Aaron Gordon that set up a crucial layup with less than a minute to go in the fourth quarter, one of his five steals.

He didn’t want to discuss the go-ahead 3 he hit with 30 seconds to go in OT that put the Lakers up two.

He didn’t even want to yap about his part in holding a notorious Lakers killer, Jamal Murray, to five points on 1-for-14 shooting.

What had Smart excited was his part in the strategy, suggesting to Reaves that, when he went to the foul line for two shots with 5.2 seconds left in the fourth and the Lakers trailing by three, he intentionally miss the second one.

Reaves ended up executing the miss to perfection and L.A. held on in the extra session to sustain its late-season inertia.

“I feel like every game,” Doncic said of Smart after the Denver victory, “he does something different to help us win.”

And his defensive commitment has remained a constant.

Smart has held 2026 All-Stars, like Murray and Edwards, to a 44.3% effective field goal percentage when he has guarded them, fifth best among 75 players to defend 100-plus shots this season, according to ESPN Research.

“He brings a grittiness and a point-of-attack defender that maybe they didn’t have a year ago,” said Wolves coach Chris Finch. “A guy that can mark somebody all by himself, without a ton of help. Which really is huge, particularly in the playoffs.”

And on a team with Reaves, Doncic and James staying in the headlines, Smart has made his noise in the locker room, as a needed voice.

“On this team, we got a lot of egos, which isn’t saying that these egos are out of control or bad. It’s just everybody’s different,” Smart said of his approach. “We have different personalities and sometimes they just don’t mix at the right time. It’s all about timing with everything.

“And sometimes you might not feel good this day or you might be having a bad game or bad couple games and it just doesn’t feel right. So for me, my leadership was to just make sure I can keep the guys together, keep the positivity and not really let us go into that sunken place that you see most teams do when they’re in a drought.”

There have been some tough stretches for Smart this season, too — just like for the team. He has missed games with back spasms. He went 1-for-12 in a loss to the LA Clippers, 2-for-9 in a loss to the New York Knicks, 0-for-7 in a loss to Boston.

Still, he has kept at it. On March 3, with L.A. clinging to a four-point lead in the final minutes of the fourth against the New Orleans Pelicans, Smart received a pass from Doncic in the corner and hit the 3 to go up seven with 1:34 to go, sealing it — in a game in which he also had seven assists, four steals and three blocks.

“To have the trust to say, ‘You know what? I’m going to give it to this guy in the corner right here,’ I definitely think that it stems from the blocks, the steals, the energy that I bring,” Smart said. “Knowing that this guy’s working. And let’s reward him.”

He has had the third-most starts, fifth-most minutes and sixth-most shot attempts this season for the Lakers. He has had a hand in everything they do.

“He’s made an impact on winning,” Redick said. “And I think that ultimately is … that’s how you rewrite the narrative of your career, is if you’re on a winning team.”

FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

Two games in Houston that could decide the race for the third seed

The Lakers aced the first part of their schedule loaded with tough opponents, beating the Knicks, the Timberwolves, and the Nuggets after an overtime thriller that was decided by Luka Dončić’s game-winning jumper on Sunday. Now they move from Crypto.com Arena to Houston for a two-game stop against a team built to test their physicality and resilience: the Rockets.

With only 15 games left on the schedule and the standings tightly packed, it almost goes without saying that every remaining game carries implications. But with the Lakers and Rockets both sitting on 25 losses, this two-game set could go a long way toward deciding which team finishes higher in the standings. For the Lakers, that probably means at least one win, but even that might not be enough. If the teams split the two games, the Rockets would win the tiebreaker 2–1 and still hold the edge with a slightly easier remaining schedule.

Remaining schedule strength (source: tankathon.com)

The good news for the Lakers is that they are heading into this matchup in a much better place than they were the last time around, when the Rockets demolished them in a high-profile Christmas matchup, prompting me to call for changes, even a system reset. Looking back, that game now feels like a season low point for the Lakers. It was their third straight blowout loss and a night in which they also lost Austin Reaves at halftime, an injury that kept him out for 18 of the next games.

Much has changed since. The Lakers are playing their best basketball of the season, winning five straight games and eight of their last nine, proving they can hang with and even beat the best teams in the NBA. A group that the Rockets, despite some recent struggles, still belong to.

Lakers (42-25) @ Rockets (41-25) game facts

Rest: LAL on 1 day of rest; HOU on 2 days of rest

Ranking: LAL 13th in Point Diff (+1.6), HOU 6th in Point Diff (+5.5)

LAL vs HOU 2025-26 record: 0-1 (see Game 29 observations here)

LAL injuries: Maxi Kleber (OUT)

HOU injuries: Fred VanVleet (OUT), Steven Adams (OUT), Jae’Sean Tate (OUT), Alperen Sengun (questionable)

LAL projected starting five: Luka Dončić (G), Marcus Smart (G), Austin Reaves (G), LeBron James (F), Deandre Ayton (C)

LAL key reserves: Rui Hachimura, Luke Kennard, Jake LaRavia, Jaxson Hayes, Jarred Vanderbilt

HOU projected starting five: Amen Thompson (G), Tari Eason (F), Kevin Durant (F), Jabari Smith (F), Alperen Sengun (C)

HOU key reserves: Reed Shepard, Dorian Finney-Smith, Clint Capela, Josh Okogie, Aaron Holiday

Key storyline: can the Lakers withstand the Rockets’ physicality while staying disciplined?

This will be a clear clash of styles, the Lakers’ skill on one side matched against the Rockets’ size, athleticism, and physicality. Houston with a huge starting five with all players 6-7 or taller, including three at 6-11, versus the Lakers with their playmaking and three on-ball creators. Dončić against the best set of wing defenders that frustrated him into four early turnovers in the first five minutes of the first matchup. Another test for Austin Reaves against length and athleticism. Deandre Ayton and Rui Hachimura against force and physicality on the glass.

The Lakers hold a clear edge in half-court offensive efficiency: they rank second in the NBA, scoring 103.8 points per 100 half-court plays. Compared to the Rockets, who rank 23rd at 95.8, that’s a huge eight-point edge. But the Rockets overcome that by winning the possession battle and creating more chances. So the Lakers will have to limit turnovers and protect the glass. They did neither in the first game, when the Rockets destroyed them with a 52.5% offensive rebound rate, by far the worst mark allowed by the Lakers this season.

The Rockets set the tone in the first game with their physicality from the opening possession, and the Lakers just couldn’t handle it and lost their composure. Tonight they need to stay disciplined when the Rockets hit and be ready to strike back.

Lakers on offense | Rockets on defense

The Rockets are a rare team that has enough length and defensive talent in the starting lineup to cover all three Lakers offensive engines. In the first game, Tari Eason started as the primary defender on Dončić, Amen Thompson defended Reaves, while Kevin Durant was matched up with LeBron James. Individually, these are all difficult matchups, which is why the Lakers, like in their last game when they attacked Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray, need to be very deliberate and disciplined in attacking the weakest links. In this case, those will be the two big men Alperen Sengun and Clint Capela, and the key sixth man Reed Sheppard.

Ime Udoka protected his big men by blitzing Dončić pick actions and forced early turnovers as Dončić threw some risky and off-target passes against the on-ball press of Eason and Thompson. Dončić cannot repeat that in this game. The Rockets have too much length to disrupt passing lanes, so discipline and patience will be key, at times making the simple pass and trusting the next man to make the right play.

The Lakers got plenty of reps attacking Jokić and the Nuggets’ blitzes, and Reaves especially had a great game attacking closeouts with his speed. With a similar slower target in Sengun, this might be the game to lean even more into that, or even increase the volume of actions with Reaves as the primary ballhandler.

Iztok Franko
@iztok_franko
Austin Reaves last 4 games, wins vs DEN,CHI,MIN, NYK:

29.5 ppg, 6.5 ast, 5.8 reb, 1.3 stl
56% FG%, shot above 50% in all 4 games
45% from 3

Scored 30 or more in last three games. And had some awesome defensive plays.
12:37 AM · Mar 16, 2026 · 4.31K Views
2 Replies · 23 Reposts · 152 Likes

Limiting turnovers will be key, and to their credit Dončić and the Lakers have been much better at that lately. After spending much of the year in the bottom third of the league in turnover rate, the Lakers have been one of the best, ranking fourth in the NBA since the All-Star break.

Rockets on offense | Lakers on defense

The Rockets’ key weakness on this end of the floor is the lack of a true floor general, which results in a high turnover rate, where they currently rank 28th, the third worst mark in the NBA. The Lakers have shown that, when locked in, defensive playmaking and generating steals is one of their strengths, with players following Marcus Smart’s lead.

We will see if JJ Redick opts for a similar tactic he used against Jokić on Durant, with aggressive double-teaming, forcing the pass and challenging the supporting cast to make enough plays. Doubling would make sense, as the Lakers do not have an elite wing defender with enough length to bother Durant (Jarred Vanderbilt’s minutes have been very limited recently), and KD is not nearly the passer that Jokić is. The other offensive hub for the Rockets is Sengun, and the key for the Lakers would be for Deandre Ayton to play with the same physicality he showed in overtime against Jokić. Thompson is the third scorer and playmaker in the starting lineup. He is a great finisher at the rim, but unreliable from the mid-range and three, so closing his driving lanes in rotations will be key. Easier said than done against one of the best, if not the best, athletes in the NBA.

The Rockets’ superpower, of course, is crashing the glass. They are the best team in the NBA in offensive rebound rate and putbacks, winning the math by getting more opportunities than their opponents. However, their superpower took a significant hit when they lost Steven Adams to a season-ending ankle injury on January 18. Before that, they were the fourth-best offense in the NBA with a historic offensive rebound rate of almost 40%. Since then, they rank as the 19th-best offense with a still very good, but not juggernaut-level, offensive rebound rate of 34.5%. Controlling the boards will be easier without Adams, who grabbed four offensive rebounds in the first matchup, but the Lakers will still need to collectively battle Sengun and Capela, two great rebounders, and watch for Thompson, Eason, and Okogie crashing from the wings.

Final thoughts

The Lakers have flipped the script with their recent play. For most of the season, matchups against athletic teams felt like a problem waiting to happen, with the same limitations likely to be exposed. Lately, however, the Lakers have shown they can match that physicality while still leaning on their skill and shotmaking. This two-game stop in Houston is another opportunity to prove that the recent surge is real, against one of the toughest and most physical teams in the league. If they do that, these games could be another step forward. If not, the Rockets will gladly drag them back into the kind of game they want to play, and back into the debates that were so demoralizing just a couple of weeks ago.