The Houston Rockets fell to a 112-108 OT loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 3 on Friday night, extending LA’s first-round series lead to 3-0 in the 2026 NBA Playoffs. We have never seen a team complete a 3-0 comeback in Playoff history, so most people have already penciled the Rockets in as first-round exits.
The Lakers have achieved this while missing star backcourt players like Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves. With Reaves expected to return before Game 4 after a failed attempt at a Game 3 return, it looks like Houston’s chances of success are dwindling further. The Rockets were without Kevin Durant in Games 1 and 3, with his status for Game 4 still uncertain.
Despite the minimal chances of success, Rockets center Alperen Sengun isn’t giving up hope. The 23-year-old Turkish center spoke to reporters after the loss and made it clear that the team will keep fighting to make the impossible come true with a comeback win.
“We’ll be upset tonight, but you have to get over it. We have another game on Sunday. The series is not over. We still believe we can come back. Win Sunday, go win in LA for Game 5, then come back here again. That’s the goal. Nobody is giving up. That’s what we have learned over the past three years, and we have it inside of us, and it’s what we’re going to do.”
The last time we saw a team come close to overturning a 3-0 series deficit was the Boston Celtics in the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals. The Celtics fell to a 3-0 series deficit despite being the higher seed against the Miami Heat, and wound up forcing a Game 7 at home. Unfortunately, their immaculate shot at making NBA history with the first-ever 3-0 series comeback failed as the Jimmy Butler-led Heat won Game 7 and went on to the NBA Finals.
The Rockets are the road team, so a series comeback would require them to win the two remaining games at home (G4, G6) and two in LA’s Crypto.com Arena (G5, G7).
All three games have been close enough for the Rockets to have won if they employed a slightly different strategy. But Lakers coach JJ Redick has comprehensively won the coaching battle against Rockets coach Ime Udoka so far this series.
Sengun has been Houston’s leading contributor in this series, averaging 24.0 points, 11.7 rebounds, and 5.7 assists over three games. He put up 33 points, 16 rebounds, six assists, three steals, and one block in Game 3, as Houston’s offense ran out of steam in OT. Sengun had an incredibly impressive individual game once again, but it was for naught as the win slipped away.
The fact that the game went to OT was a huge problem for the Rockets, who blew a six-point lead in under 30 seconds by making two costly turnovers, which the Lakers punished with two three-point conversions.
While Sengun has been Houston’s best player, there are flaws in his style of play that the Lakers have exposed. This is true primarily on defense, as Sengun can’t provide the interior protection required to deter these Lakers from relentlessly attacking the rim. Either they’re scoring on Sengun in the post or creating open three-point opportunities on the wing.
Sengun is still a young star, with the Rockets’ core rotation as a whole still having a lot of room to grow compared to the experienced core around LeBron James on the Lakers. But potentially being swept in a series in which they were considered massive favorites is a very embarrassing outcome.
The Rockets definitely won’t give up after the slim margins of their previous three losses. They have to stay motivated to keep their season alive at home in Game 4 on Sunday.
