The Houston Rockets will be the lower seed in their first-round NBA Playoff matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers. They ended the season 52-30 as the No. 5 seed, while the Lakers won 53 games for the No. 4 seed.
The status of Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves is still uncertain after their late-season injuries, meaning 41-year-old LeBron James might have to carry the team’s offensive load alone for the first few games of the series. While James is no stranger to being a No. 1 option in the Playoffs, his age and reduced production make it hard to believe he can lead them to this series win unless Doncic and Reaves return.
The Rockets are preparing to shut LeBron James down, with head coach Ime Udoka revealing that the team will use five key players as defensive options on James in a media scrum before the start of the first round.
“Multiple guys. You know Josh will be there, Tari (Eason) will be there, Jabari (Smith Jr.), Kevin (Durant), and Amen (Thompson) as well. We like the length and size we have on the wings; throw different bodies at him. So, outside of Reed (Sheppard) there from a size standpoint, we like a lot of the matchups.”
The signature strength the Rockets bring with them to the Playoffs is size across their starting five. They genuinely do have five or potentially more individual player matchups they can throw at LeBron to potentially restrict his production. This versatility also means that they’ll have multiple high-energy defenders for 48 minutes chasing LeBron, ensuring he doesn’t get to take any rest on or off-ball.
LeBron James has averaged 22.0 points, 4.0 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and 1.7 steals in three games against the Rockets this season. He shot 67.5% from the field and 50.0% from three on eight three-point attempts. His relatively low volume on shot attempts highlights that he could get his stats efficiently as a second or third option instead of attacking suboptimal matchups against the Rockets’ fierce defensive frontcourt.
Unless Doncic and Reaves are made available for Game 1, LeBron James will have to bear the weight of the Lakers’ offense on his shoulders. There isn’t another reliable guard playmaker outside of him, and unless Rui Hachimura takes a huge offensive leap, LeBron won’t have enough support offensively either.
Coach JJ Redick will have to devise a scheme to make up for these shortcomings if his star guards wind up missing the first game or two, because James likely can’t carry this load alone against this Rockets defense.
Houston is designed to slow forwards like LeBron James down, so LA will need more production from supplemental players. James likely will control the flow of offense as the primary playmaker, but it isn’t realistic to imagine him carrying the offense with 35 points and 10 assists as he would’ve been able to during his prime.
Coach Udoka is known to be a great defensive coach, and he’ll get to deploy his schemes against an offensive mastermind such as LeBron James in a Playoff scenario. Given their history with each other, this will be a great matchup, and it’ll be exciting to see how the Lakers prepare for it if Doncic and Reaves can’t return in time.
