All eyes will be on the great Kevin Durant when his visiting Houston Rockets seek to square the ledger against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 2 of their best-of-seven playoff series Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Durant was unable to play Saturday\u2019s first-round series opener after accidentally bumping knees with a teammate at practice three days earlier.<\/p>\n
The 16-time All-Star attempted to warm up a few hours before tipoff, but he ultimately didn\u2019t feel his right knee was good enough to play.<\/p>\n
Durant led Houston with an average of 26 points per game this season and is No. 5 on the NBA\u2019s all-time leading scorers list.<\/p>\n
In his absence, the fifth-seeded Rockets struggled offensively in a 107-98 loss to the Lakers in Game 1.<\/p>\n
Houston had 27 more shot attempts but misfired badly, connecting at 37.6% from the field, 33.3% from 3-point range and 68% from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n
Rockets coach Ime Udoka didn\u2019t hesitate when asked about the qualities that Durant brings to the table, which were sorely lacking Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cEfficiency and consistent scoring,\u201d Udoka said. \u201cOn a nightly basis, he (Durant) shoots at a good, high clip. He doesn\u2019t have too many nights like this (Houston in Game 1), struggling-wise. With all the young guys, he kind of calms you down \u2026 Regardless, if he\u2019s back or not, if we\u2019re shooting that poorly, it\u2019s going to be tough to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alperen Sengun led the Durant-less Rockets with 19 points. Amen Thompson and Reed Sheppard added 17 apiece, and Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason both had 16.<\/p>\n
Durant is expected to be fit to take his place as the Rockets endeavor to overcome their 1-0 deficit, but the Lakers showed they are able to adapt whether or not Houston\u2019s main man is on the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it (Durant not playing Game 1) affected our mentality,\u201d Los Angeles coach JJ Redick said. \u201cThis is all we\u2019ve talked about for two months, is our playoff mentality. You can\u2019t worry about who\u2019s in or out of a line-up. It\u2019s our gameplan, it\u2019s our standard, it\u2019s how we play and we\u2019ve built towards that.\u201d<\/p>\n
That standard saw the Lakers shoot a sizzling 60.6% from the floor, including 52.6% from deep. The star was Luke Kennard, who produced a playoff career-high 27 points and went 5-of-5 from three.<\/p>\n
Thompson admits the Rockets should have been more dialed in on Kennard, a key reserve and the NBA\u2019s most accurate 3-point shooter, who the Lakers acquired from the Atlanta Hawks in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust respect other players,\u201d Thompson said when asked where his team can improve. \u201cI knew what Kennard could do. But I\u2019ve got to be more locked in for it \u2014 locked in for that match-up.\u201d<\/p>\n
LeBron James posted 19 points and 13 assists, while Deandre Ayton paired 19 points with 11 boards for Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
The Lakers are without their two leading scorers \u2014 Luka Doncic (left hamstring strain) and Austin Reaves (left oblique strain) \u2014 which means greater production is required from more sources.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have a choice,\u201d said James, who is participating in his 19th postseason. \u201cIt has to be that way \u2014 it has to be the collective group. When you\u2019re missing so much firepower like we are right now with AR and Luka being out, we all have to pitch in. We all have to do our job, and even do a little bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All eyes will be on the great Kevin Durant when his visiting Houston Rockets seek to square the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-714962","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"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116440579089912597","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714962","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=714962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}