The Los Angeles Lakers took down the Houston Rockets 100-92 at Toyota Center on Monday to extend their winning streak to an impressive six games. The Lakers were actually expected to flounder during this stretch, as they faced tougher competition, but they have managed to get the better of all of them.
A big reason why the Lakers have had success is that they have been much better defensively. They have a 109.7 defensive rating in March, good enough for seventh-best in the NBA.
It has been quite a transformation considering how bad the Lakers were defensively in the first half of the season, and head coach JJ Redick and his staff deserve a lot of credit for it. This isn’t a team filled with great defenders, but they’re finding ways to slow teams down.
What’s perhaps been most impressive about this stretch of good defense is that the Lakers have managed to put the clamps on three big guns over the last week. They were up against Kevin Durant when they took on the Rockets and made life miserable for him in the second half.
Durant had 16 points in the first half, but only two in the second. Redick chose to hound the 37-year-old with double-teams in the fourth quarter and managed to shut him down completely.
Durant would finish with 18 points (8-16 FG), five rebounds, and two assists against the Lakers. They also forced the 16-time All-Star into seven turnovers (six in the second half) in the game. Durant said the Lakers were throwing a “gimmick defense” at him, but it worked.
A couple of nights prior to this Rockets game, the Lakers beat the Denver Nuggets 127-125 in a wild overtime thriller on Saturday. They were up against two players there who have tormented them in the past, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray.
Murray, in particular, appears to step up his game against the Lakers, but he ended up having one of his worst games of the season. The Canadian had only five points (1-14 FG), six rebounds, six assists, and two steals. Murray also fouled out, and it proved to be a night to forget for him.
While keeping Durant and Murray in check in back-to-back games is impressive, it was in the 120-106 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on March 10 that the Lakers pulled off their best defensive performance against a big name.
Timberwolves superstar Anthony Edwards has been one of the best players in the NBA this season, and he had scored at least 30 points in four of his last six games coming into that clash with the Lakers. Edwards had no answers against their defense, though, finishing with 14 points (2-15 FG), two rebounds, four assists, one steal, and one block.
With how the Lakers were hammered for being poor defensively earlier, it is only fair now that we give them their flowers when they do well. The question now is, can they keep this up?
Well, it was Marcus Smart who had clamped up Edwards, and you’d back the former Defensive Player of the Year to continue to operate at a high level. As for the rest, time will tell.
The Lakers improved to 43-25 with this win over the Rockets and will face off against them again at Toyota Center on Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. ET. Durant would be keen to make amends for what happened last time out, and it’ll be interesting to see if they can slow him down again.
