Small ball came up big against the big men of Los Angeles as Houston showed their resiliency all their night in game 1.
Fresh off their game 7 victory over OKC, the Rockets beat the well rested Lakers 112-97 in game 1 of the western conference semi finals matchup.
James Harden scored 36 points against a laker team who started another round with a game 1 loss. Russell Westbrook also finished with 24 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists. Eric Gordon with an immense contribution also ended the night with 23 points.
25 points and 14 rebounds from Davis and 20 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists from Lebron James was not enough as the Lakers trailed Rockets for most part of the night.
The Rockets showed little signs of fatigue and made up for their lack of size with lots of speed and energy. This worked for them as they forced the Lakers into 17 turnovers. They even had more defensive rebounds than the Lakers.
"It seems like they scored on every turnover we had...27 points off turnovers which kills us. So we can’t turn the ball over against this team.” Anthony Davis said.
The poor rotations on defense of the Lakers ensured the Rockets outscored the Lakers in the paint. This is surprising considering Rockets adopted the small-ball style.
Speaking after the game Harden said : "It doesn't matter how tall you are. If you have the heart and you're a competitor you can be out there on the court.”
Head coach Frank Vogel, however wants to look forward to game 2 and not dwell on this loss.
"The Game 7 versus a team with rest -- I've always felt that the team that played a Game 7 has a slight advantage. But you can't look at that as any type of excuse. We're not an excuse team. We've got to come out and compete to win a game. This one's behind us. We lost it. Got to move on to Game 2."
The Lakers will probably bounce back just like they did in round 1 against the Trail blazers but the Rockets are a much better side so the Lakers have alot to do to get back into the series.
Game 2 is on Sunday.