The tale of the tape in the Houston Rockets’ opening round postseason matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers was one that hinged on health. Especially heading into the series.
The Los Angeles Lakers were seemingly at their weakest, as the team was forced to play without Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves seemingly for the entirety of the matchup. Granted, the Rockets have also not been at full strength at any point of the regular season, having been without Fred VanVleet all season and Steven Adams for the last
three months of the season.
Neither of those two are at the level of Doncic or Reaves on the star scale. Not even close.
The assumption was that the Rockets would easily take care of a ragtag bunch centered around 41-year-old LeBron James and role players. And right so.
They should’ve been able to. They should be able to. However, when Kevin Durant went down, the narrative shifted.
People began to give the Rockets sympathy since they were without Durant. Sure, Durant is a surefire All-NBA player this season who turned in one of the greatest individual scoring seasons in Rockets history, especially when factoring in efficiency (26 points on 52 percent from the field, 41.3 percent from deep, 87.4 percent from the foul line, 64.2 percent true shooting and 58.8 percent effective shooting).
But again, the Lakers were playing without their top two leading scorers, and the league’s leading scorer. The Rockets should be able to beat this iteration of the Lakers without Durant.
They tanked for three seasons and amassed four years of top-five draft picks. Alperen Sengun is a two-time All-Star.
And Amen Thompson is one of the best two-way players in the league. Jabari Smith Jr. was viewed as the best player in his draft class.
Two of the aforementioned three have landed pay days. And Houston boasts much more youth and athleticism than the Lakers.
The Rockets also have more of their key players than the Lakers. The Lakers are much more compromised than the Rockets, even without Durant.
So they shouldn’t get any sympathy for losing to this iteration of the Lakers. They got gashed by Luke Kennard, after all, who was the game’s leading scorer.
And nothing against Kennard, who is a very good shooter, but he shouldn’t be outplaying Sengun, Smith, Thompson or Reed Sheppard.
Which is why the Rockets can’t use the injury excuse, as it pertains to Durant. Well, they can, but they shouldn’t get sympathy.
Because the Lakers managed to win in spite of much more significant injury-related absences.
