![](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/P06-260318-310.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLuka Doncic on Monday scored 36 points as the in-form Los Angeles Lakers powered to their sixth straight victory with a 100-92 defeat of the Houston Rockets. <\/p>\n
A crucial showdown between the third and fourth-ranked NBA Western Conference teams ended with the Lakers pulling away in the final minute of the fourth quarter to claim an impressive win on the road. <\/p>\n
The victory gives the Lakers (43-25) a valuable cushion over the Rockets (41-26) as they jostle for post-season positions in the West. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Photo: Getty Images via AFP<\/p>\n
Doncic was once again instrumental in dragging the Lakers over the line while a hard-nosed defensive effort kept the Rockets\u2019 scoring in check. <\/p>\n
LeBron James finished with 18 points and Austin Reaves 15 while Jabari Smith Jr led Houston\u2019s scoring with 22 points. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe held them to 92 points, which for this team is pretty awesome. We did a great job defensively,\u201d Doncic said. \u201cWe could have done better, but all that matters is that we got the win. We\u2019ve got to keep this going.\u201d <\/p>\n
The San Antonio Spurs relied on another balanced offensive display to edge the Los Angeles Clippers 119-115 and cement their grip on second place in the West. <\/p>\n
Stephon Castle led the Spurs scorers with 23 points while Victor Wembanyama had 21 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks in another dominant all-round display. <\/p>\n
San Antonio have now won 18 of their last 20 games and clawed their way out of a 14-point deficit in the first quarter to take the win. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey pushed us in the first quarter, and sometimes the basketball is not working,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cSo, we had to get nasty a little bit.\u201d <\/p>\n
San Antonio improved to 50-18 and are firmly in sight of the Oklahoma City Thunder (53-15) at the top of the standings. <\/p>\n
The Boston Celtics maintained their pursuit of the Detroit Pistons at the top of the Eastern Conference with a 120-112 win against the visiting Phoenix Suns. <\/p>\n
A game that unfolded as a high-scoring personal duel between Boston\u2019s Jaylen Brown and Phoenix\u2019s Devin Booker saw both men score 41 points and 40 points respectively before the Celtics finally clinched victory. <\/p>\n
Brown was backed by 21 points apiece from Jayson Tatum and Derrick White while Payton Pritchard once again demonstrated his sharp-shooting talent from the bench with 19 points, 15 of them coming from three-pointers. <\/p>\n
Boston\u2019s second straight victory left them on 45-23, three-and-half games behind leaders Detroit (48-19). <\/p>\n
Phoenix slipped to 39-29 and are seventh in the Western Conference, just outside the automatic playoff places.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luka Doncic on Monday scored 36 points as the in-form Los Angeles Lakers powered to their sixth straight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6,3974,3973],"class_list":{"0":"post-663202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-la","10":"tag-la-lakers","11":"tag-lakers","12":"tag-lalakers","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangeleslakers","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-the-taipei-times","19":"tag-3973"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116245464796795001","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}