HOUSTON — Trailing by six with half a minute to go in the fourth quarter Friday, the Los Angeles Lakers appeared to have squandered their chance to go up 3-0 in their first-round series against the Rockets, letting a double-digit lead slip away after halftime.
Until LeBron James and Marcus Smart, L.A.’s two oldest players on the court, made some magic happen, that is.
“The game’s never over until zeroes on the clock,” James said after the Lakers’ eventual 112-108 overtime win.
Smart started the sequence by stealing Houston forward Jabari Smith Jr.’s pass with 27.8 seconds left and immediately launched into a 3-point attempt after securing the ball, drawing a foul on Jae’Sean Tate and making all three free throws to cut the lead in half.
“It was a smart play,” said Smart, who finished with 21 points, 10 assists and five steals. “My vet savvy. Been in the league for 12 years. I picked up some tricks.”
Then James, who has played more seasons (23) and appeared in more playoff games (295) than anyone else in NBA history, contributed his own stop and score by trapping Rockets guard Reed Sheppard in the backcourt, poking the ball away to Rui Hachimura, and then spacing out to the arc to hit a catch-and-shoot 3 with 13.6 second left to tie it.
“Listen, we came that far, so trying to see if I can make plays,” said the 41-year-old James, who played 45 minutes and finished with 29 points, 13 rebounds, six assists and eight turnovers. “Obviously my presence on the floor is key for our ball club.”
L.A. outscored Houston 11-7 in overtime, with Smart scoring eight of the team’s points, including two crucial free throws with 52.4 seconds remaining after sneaking behind the Rockets’ Tari Eason and getting fouled on a putback attempt after grabbing the offensive rebound following a James miss. Hachimura (22 points on 8-for-14 shooting) scored the rest of the Lakers’ points in OT and also secured an offensive rebound in traffic to set up a layup for himself during the extended possession.
“As much as we emphasize [Houston’s] offensive rebounding, we also want to crash, we also want to get extra possessions, and those two guys made two of the biggest plays of the night,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said of Smart and Hachimura.
By the end of the comeback, the Lakers became just the second team in the past 30 postseasons to trail by six or more points in the final 30 seconds of regulation and go on to win, joining the Philadelphia 76ers over the New York Knicks in Game 5 of the first round in 2024, according to ESPN Research.
The Lakers are just one win away from advancing to the second round, despite not having either of their top two leading scorers in Luka Doncic (left hamstring) and Austin Reaves (left oblique) in the lineup for the past three weeks.
“The last week of the season, the last thing you would want or even want to imagine or think about is, s—, two of your best players going down with injuries and not being ready for the postseason,” James said. “So it was a shift for all of us, it’s challenging for all of us … and we’re figuring it out together on the fly.”
Part of that discovery process has elevated Luke Kennard (14 points, six rebounds, six assists), who was acquired in a deal with the Atlanta Hawks at the trade deadline to be a designated shooter. He has become a necessary playmaker for L.A.
And part of the process has upped the urgency for everyone involved, not having the nearly 60 points per game that Doncic and Reaves generate at their disposal.
“We don’t have the luxury of being passive or being complacent,” James said. “We don’t have the luxury to do that. Our whole mindset is we have to do everything it takes in that particular game and that particular moment in that particular possession in order for us to win basketball games, because we don’t have a long leash of error.”
The Lakers don’t want to give Houston, who could have Kevin Durant back from a sprained left ankle in Sunday’s Game 4, any hope of extending the series any longer.
“We got to be like a lion,” Smart said. “We got to have that killer instinct. We got them on the ground. We just got to finish them off and keep our foot on their neck.”
