LOS ANGELES — The reward, and challenge, for the Lakers on Friday night was laid out pretty clearly for them before their final regular-season home game against the Houston Rockets.
Win and the Lakers would not only secure their first 50-win season since winning the 2019-20 NBA championship, and their first in an 82-game season in more than a decade, but they’d also secure the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference playoff bracket.
The challenge: bringing the same level of intensity, especially on the defensive end of the court, against a Rockets team that sat most of its rotation players, with Houston having already clinched the West’s No. 2 seed earlier in the week.
“We have not consistently had the same defensive mindset approach to some teams versus the great teams,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said before the game. “We gotta have that [on Friday].”
And after a shaky start, the Lakers (50-31) accomplished their goal, blowing out the Rockets, 140-109, at Crypto.com Arena and clinching the Pacific Division title for only the second time in the last 13 years.
Luka Doncic, clearly still in rhythm after his 45-point performance in his return to Dallas on Wednesday, led the Lakers with 39 points, eight rebounds and seven assists.
Doncic shot 13 for 19 from the field, including 5 for 9 from 3-point range and sat out the fourth quarter as the Lakers shot 61% overall and 19 for 37 from behind the arc while winning for the sixth time in the past eight games.
Austin Reaves added 23 points (9-of-15 shooting, 3 for 6 from 3-point range), seven rebounds, six assists and a pair of steals.
LeBron James had 14 points (6-for-11 shooting), eight assists and four rebounds, playing just 22 minutes after appearing to hurt his left side midway through the third quarter and subbing out with 7:27 left in the quarter.
The 40-year-old James appeared to be OK later even though he didn’t return, moonwalking from underneath the basket back to the Lakers’ bench after Reaves’ step-back 13-foot jumper over Jack McVeigh gave the Lakers a 119-96 lead.
Redick took his main rotation players out with 4:23 left in the fourth, with the Lakers leading 128-103 after Dorian Finney-Smith’s sixth 3-pointer of the game.
Finney-Smith had 18 points and three steals off the bench. Rui Hachimura added 16 points and five rebounds.
Second-year wing Cam Whitmore led the Rockets (52-29) with a career-high 34 points and eight rebounds.
Alperen Sengun, Dillon Brooks, Fred VanVleet, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., Tari Eason and Jae’Sean Tate all sat out for the Rockets, leaving Houston without six of its top seven scorers.
The Lakers, who close the regular season against the Trail Blazers on Sunday afternoon in Portland, will host Games 1 and 2 of their best-of-seven first-round playoff series in Los Angeles for the first time since April 2012.
More to come on this story.
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