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Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James and Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves react with Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic after Doncic scored the game winning basket in overtime against the Denver Nuggets at Crypto.com Arena on March 14, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.<\/p>\n
Injured guard Luka Doncic was in awe watching LeBron James lead the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> to a 112-108 OT win over the Houston Rockets<\/a> on Friday night.<\/p>\n Soon after the Lakers seized a commanding 3-0 series lead over the Rockets in the first round of the playoffs, Doncic shared a graphic of James\u2019 stat line \u2014 29 points, 13 rebounds, six assists, three steals and one block \u2014 on his social media feed.<\/p>\n Luka IG story : showing Lebron some love \ud83d\udd25 <\/p>\n Lakers Stun the Rockets<\/p>\n The Lakers were down by six points with half a minute left in the fourth quarter before a series of unforced errors by the Rockets allowed them to force OT.<\/p>\n First, Marcus Smart<\/a> intercepted a pass from Jabari Smith at the 27.8-second mark and drew a foul on a three-point play. He would make all three foul shots.<\/p>\n Thereafter, LeBron James played outstanding defense on Rockets guard Reed Sheppard<\/a> before poking the ball away and nailing a three with 13.6 seconds left.\u00a0 The incredible sequence allowed the Lakers to tie the score at 101 with 13.6 seconds left.<\/p>\n The Rockets had a final shot at winning the game in regulation, but Alperen Sengun<\/a> missed his 7-foot shot as the game went into overtime.<\/p>\n In the extra period, the Lakers outscored the Rockets 11-8, with Smart scoring eight of his team\u2019s 11 points, including two free throws with 52.4 seconds left. Rui Hachimura<\/a>, who finished with 22 points, also made a key bucket after securing an offensive board.<\/p>\n LeBron James Leads the Lakers<\/p>\n Nobody expected the Lakers to claim a 3-0 lead amid the injuries to their two two scorers \u2014 Luka Doncic (hamstring) and Austin Reaves<\/a> (oblique). In fact, the Lakers entered the series as +550 underdogs, their steepest odds to win a first-round playoff series in nearly 30 years, according to ESPN Research.<\/p>\n James explained why the injuries did not dampen his team\u2019s spirits.<\/p>\n \u201cThe last week of the season, the last thing you would want or even want to imagine or think about is, s\u2014, two of your best players going down with injuries and not being ready for the postseason,\u201d James said, via ESPN\u2019s Dave McMenamin.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cSo it was a shift for all of us, it\u2019s challenging for all of us \u2026 and we\u2019re figuring it out together on the fly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have the luxury of being passive or being complacent,\u201d James continued.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have the luxury to do that. Our whole mindset is we have to do everything it takes in that particular game and that particular moment in that particular possession in order for us to win basketball games, because we don\u2019t have a long leash of error.\u201d<\/p>\n The Lakers could get Austin Reaves back for Game 4 on Sunday, but there\u2019s still uncertainty surrounding Luka Doncic\u2019s status.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tSai Mohan<\/a> covers the NBA for Heavy.com. Based in Portugal, Sai is a seasoned sports writer with nearly two decades of publishing experience, including bylines at Yardbarker, FanSided’s Hoops Habit, International Business Times, Hindustan Times and more. More about Sai Mohan<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James and Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves react with Los Angeles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-717580","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\/116464107749076291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717580","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=717580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}