Los Angeles Lakers @ Houston Rockets
Monday, January 29, 2024 at 8:00 PM ET
Toyota Center, Houston, TX | Game ID: 22300662
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Final
HOU 42 36 30 27 135LAL 31 29 24 35 119
ESPN UpdateESPN Update
Jalen Green and Alperen Sengun power the Rockets past the Lakers 135-119
HOUSTON -- — Jalen Green scored 34 points and Alperen Sengun added 31 to help the Houston Rockets to a 135-119 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday night.
Houston led by as many as 30 points in the second half before the Lakers used a 20-5 run to get within 10 with four minutes left.
The Rockets scored the next six points, with three from Green, to make it 127-111 with about three minutes left and the Lakers removed their starters.
Green, the second overall pick in the 2021 draft, is working to be a more all-around player in his first season under coach Ime Udoka.
“I'm building on it,” Green said. “That's what he wants from me. That's what I want for myself. Brick by brick, just going to keep learning and keep growing each game.”
LeBron James , Anthony Davis and D’Angelo Russell scored 23 points apiece for the Lakers, who had won two in a row, capped by a 145-144 double-overtime victory over Golden State on Saturday.
Cam Whitmore had 20 points off the bench for Houston, and Jabari Smith Jr. had 18 points and nine rebounds in his return after missing four games with a sprained left ankle. Green and Sengun also had 12 rebounds and seven assists each to help the Rockets to the victory.
The Rockets were up by 25 points after a basket by Sengun with about nine minutes left when the Lakers used a 12-3 run to get within 119-103 midway through the quarter.
Soon after that, James was knocked to the court after being hit in the face by Brooks as the two fought for a rebound. James remained face down on the court for a couple of minutes while team officials attended to him before getting up and walking off the court.
The play was reviewed and determined to be a flagrant 1 foul, and James remained in the game.
James missed both free throws, but made a layup seconds after that to start an 8-2 run that cut the lead to 121-111 with four minutes to go.
The Rockets led by 18 at halftime and opened the third quarter with a 16-4 run to make it 94-64 with about 7½ minutes left in the quarter.
Houston was up by 29 a couple of minutes later before the Lakers used an 11-2 spurt, with five points from Davis, to cut the lead to 101-81 with about two minutes left in the third.
James was disappointed in how they performed to end the first quarter.
“We just didn’t get back,” he said. “We didn’t have a sense of care factor. We didn’t have no care factor in those last two minutes.”
The Lakers' Jarred Vanderbilt was ejected in the second quarter after getting two technical fouls during an exchange with Brooks.
Vanderbilt got his first technical foul after pushing Brooks below the neck after a basket by the Lakers with about 10 minutes left in the second quarter. Brooks was walking away from Vanderbilt and had his back to him when Vanderbilt tapped him on the back of the head , drawing another technical and an immediate ejection.
Vanderbilt appeared to be upset after Brooks pushed him while he was in the air on a dunk about a minute earlier. He landed awkwardly after making that shot and fell to the ground.
“I feel like he felt like I did a dirty play,” Brooks said. “And when he feels that way he likes to bump. And it’s basketball, we bump and tussle and I feel like he took it a little too far.”
James refused to talk about Brooks, but Davis had plenty to say about him.
“You take a hard foul, it’s part of basketball,” Davis said. “But you’re just not going to blatantly push someone in their back when they have no control of their body in the air. I think he should have got ejected for that. And then … obviously you know that him and Bron have their whatever and from what I saw it was just a blatant hit on LeBron to the face.”
Who is who
the initials in the Players column
LALAD A. Davis
AR A. Reaves
CW C. Wood
DR D. Russell
JH J. Hayes
JH J. Hood-Schifino
JV J. Vanderbilt
LJ L. James
MC M. Christie
RH R. Hachimura
TP T. Prince
HOUAS A. Sengun
AT A. Thompson
CW C. Whitmore
DB D. Brooks
FV F. VanVleet
JG J. Green
JS J. Smith Jr.
JT J. Tate
JG Ja. Green
LAL/HOU the team itself, not a player
-- the feed named nobody
What
What happened
the codes in the Events column
M2 / M3 made 2 / made 3
X2 / X3 missed 2 / missed 3
FT / X1 free throw made / missed
AST assist
OR / DR offensive / defensive rebound
STL steal
BLK block
TO turnover
FL foul
OF offensive foul — ends the possession
VIOL violation
JUMP jump ball
TM timeout
IR instant replay
HE heave at the buzzer, filed to the team
Where
Where a shot came from
the middle field of M3.LW.25
RM at the rim inside 4 ft
RC right corner
RW right wing
SO straight on
LW left wing
LC left corner
M3.LW.25 made 3, left wing, 25 ft
X2.RM.01 missed 2, at the rim, 1 ft
When
When it happened
the Offset column
one number per event, in the Events order:
whole seconds from the start of the
possession to that event
Events FL X3.RC.23 OR M2.RM.01
Offset 0 18 22 24
the foul opens the possession at 0s;
the putback ends it at 24s, which is
the possession's own Dur