Luke Kennard and LeBron James guide the Lakers to a Game 1 victory over the Rockets
No Luka Dončić. No Austin Reaves.
But no Kevin Durant?
Sticking strictly to the math, the Lakers having to open their first-round series against Houston without Dončić (33.5 ppg) and Reaves (23.3) would seem to pose more than double the trouble the Rockets faced when Durant (26.0) was a late scratch from Game 1 of the teams’ first-round Western Conference series.
It didn’t work out that way, though, when the Lakers found alternative ways to generate their offense and the Rockets looked discombobulated in Saturday night’s opener at Crypto.com Arena.
Here are four takeaways from Los Angeles’ 107-98 victory that gave them a 1-0 series lead:
1. The‘Luka Nard’ game
If you can’t have Luka, you can have Luke … uh. With the Lakers in dire need of an offensive transfusion – and already being counted out by many in the series given Dončić’s (hamstring strain) and Reaves’ (oblique strain) uncertain recovery timelines – it was a step up-or-fail situation for the home squad.
Well, Luke Kennard stepped all the way up. The veteran lefthander, acquired Feb. 5 from Atlanta, had his biggest scoring night since arriving in L.A. He scored a game-high 27 points, his first of 20+ as a Laker, shooting 9-for-13 and 5-for-5 on 3s. Long typecast as a catch-and-shoot specialist – one who led the NBA in 3-point percentage this season for the third time in his career – Kennard played a well-rounded offensive game, with buckets off the dribble and in transition.
Luke Kennard pours in a playoff career-high 27 points to key the Lakers' Game 1 win
A reserve who averaged 9.0 points in 23 minutes nightly as a Laker can wreak havoc on a defensive game plan when he triples that output unexpectedly. Which he did.
“He is the number one shooter in the NBA so, you know, there’s not much to say,” Lakers center Deandre Ayton said. “He’s doing it in the playoffs where it really counts. My word is ‘speechless,’ to be honest.”
2. Maybe 41 is the new 30
Kennard was special, but LeBron James was essential Saturday in getting the Lakers going and keeping them in front. At an age when he should be on the sideline wearing a headset or relaxing in a luxury suite, the NBA’s all-time leader in games, points, playoff appearances and 80% of all other league goodness met the challenge of picking up his team’s slack. Maybe it was just another opportunity to shine for James near the end of his 23rd season.
James’ first priority in this one was to get teammates involved and rolling, to take their minds off who wasn’t there and focus on who was. He scored four points but distributed eight assists to help L.A. take a 33-29 lead after one quarter. By the end, James had 19 points, eight rebounds and 13 assists.
Supposedly too old to carry a quality team anymore, James appeared to help Ayton lock in (no small feat) and move the ball to and through others.
“He trusts everyone on the court,” Kennard said. “He gives confidence to everyone.”
3. Missing Durant, Rockets misfired
Houston coach Ime Udoka acknowledged his team missed Durant’s efficiency and consistency. But Udoka disputed a suggestion that the thin man’s right knee contusion – suffered at Wednesday’s practice – threw the team’s offense into turmoil.
“I don’t think it was a surprise to us,” Udoka said. “We knew he got banged up and we looked at a bunch of different things without him. If he could go, he could go, but it was doubtful based on how he was moving the last few days.
“We prepped for different lineups without him. We knew there might be a good chance he was out.”
Let’s put it this way then: There’s a difference between knowing a train is coming and stepping in front of the engine as it arrives. Instead of the Rockets’ other players running the offense through Durant and playing off him, they variously tried to do too much or too little. Filter out their fast-break and second-chance scoring and they would have managed a mere 64 points.
Houston could ill afford to lose any games in this series when Dončić and Reaves weren’t participating, yet that’s what happened. Now there is rumbling that the Slovenian backcourt star, who led the league in scoring this season, could be back as soon as Game 3. So the Rockets didn’t just miss Durant – they missed a huge opportunity.
4. A Playoff Bronny sighting
If a fan in the stands or a viewer at home was tempted to do a double-take, well, yes, it was true: James was on the court in the second quarter of an NBA playoff game with his son Bronny. It happened in the second quarter, when a postseason game still to be won or lost, rather than at the tail end of some hopeless blowout.
There was James and over there, according to the name on the back of the jersey (“James Jr.”), was Bronny. He was in the game for three minutes, with one turnover and two fouls in his stats line, but enough defense to end the night with a plus-3.
“I was on the floor with my son. In a playoff game. That’s probably the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me in my career,” the elder James said. “It was so cool to be out there with him, [with] his brother and his sister and his mom in the building.
“And his grandma. My mom gets to watch her son and her grandson during the playoffs. That’s crazy.”
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Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
