HOUSTON — Luka Doncic had 40 points and LeBron James added 30, and the Lakers put together another strong fourth quarter to beat the Houston Rockets, 124-116, on Wednesday night for their seventh consecutive win and their 10th in the past 11 games.
It’s the 10th win in 11 games for the Lakers (44-25), who also beat Houston 100-92 on Monday night, and now own head-to-head tiebreakers against the three teams directly behind them in the Western Conference standings with 13 games left in the regular season.
The Lakers led by four points with about 90 seconds remaining when Doncic found James for an alley-oop dunk. Kevin Durant had a turnover on the other end, then Doncic delivered a dagger 3-pointer with 58.4 seconds left.
After a handful of dribble moves, Doncic stepped back and fired, giving the Lakers a 120-111 lead. The Slovenian star ran to the corner of the court and shouted in celebration at the road crowd as his teammates surrounded him. He dapped up James, bringing him in for a chest bump.
Doncic added 10 assists and nine rebounds to finish one rebound shy of a triple-double, while James shot 13 for 14 from the field – tying the best single-game shooting effort of his career.
The Lakers, who had seen a 13-point lead evaporate, again proved their mettle in crunch time. James converted a pair of close-range baskets for a 100-96 lead in the fourth before assisting Deandre Ayton (16 points) to make it a six-point cushion. Later in the quarter, with the Lakers trailing 109-107, Rui Hachimura collected an off-kilter pass from Doncic with one hand.
Hachimura’s 3-pointer, which appeared short, took two bounces off the rim and fell in. On the following possession, Doncic posted up on Rockets guard Amen Thompson on the wing. Two dribbles and Thompson bounced back, allowing Doncic to bury a 3-pointer to give the Lakers a 113-109 lead with 3:14 remaining in the game.
The second half wasn’t always certain for the Lakers.
Kevin Durant had been uncharacteristically quiet for four quarters. He’d been successfully stifled in the second half of Monday’s game, with the Lakers double-teaming him into five turnovers and just two points. In the first half of Wednesday’s contest, it was more of the same, slowing Durant to two points on 1-for-3 shooting as he turned the ball over twice as the Lakers swiftly took a lead as high as 13 points into the first half.
But much like how James can showcase what’s made him timeless, Durant can do the same – and he used a 20-5 third-quarter run to do so. Scoring seven of the Rockets’ points across the first five minutes of the period, Durant hammered home a one-handed dunk to provide Houston with a 73-72 lead with 7:05 remaining. By the quarter’s end, the Lakers had been outscored by 15 points (32-17).
Durant finished with 18 points on 7-for-11 shooting, while Rockets center Alperen Sengun recorded a team-high 27 points, 10 assists and four rebounds after not playing against the Lakers on Monday. Thompson collected 26 points on a team-high 42 minutes Wednesday.
James, who shot 8 for 8 from the field for 18 points in the first half – the first time he converted at least eight shots with perfect results since exactly 15 years ago Wednesday, according to Stathead – put on a dunk clinic in the first half, including a one-handed hammer alley-oop to the gasps of the Toyota Center crowd in the second quarter.
James ascended for one last alley-oop dunk in the fourth before Doncic’s final 3-pointer, to show not just Durant, but the Rockets, who is king in Houston on Wednesday.
NOTESJames had five rebounds to give him 12,002, making him the 23rd player in NBA history to reach 12,000 rebounds. … James also shot 13 of 14 for Miami against Charlotte on Feb. 4, 2013. …
_More to come on this story._