Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Dominant Lakers Defense Helps Lakers Win Game 6, Eliminate Houston

Episode Date: May 2, 2026

The Lakers were disappointed by the results of Game 5 at home Wednesday night, and knew moving back to Houston they'd need a much better Game 6 to eliminate the Rockets.  And that's what they got.  The Lakers used a good-enough offense, with low turnovers (10) and good 3-point shooting (12-28, 43%) in combination with an excellent defense -- the Rockets shot 35% from the floor and weren't a force on the offensive glass (despite a LOT of opportunities). LeBron James led the way with 28 points, on 10-25 shooting. Rui Hachimura was massive, with 21 points, fueled by 5-7 shooting from downtown. Austin Reaves finished with 15, but was integral in the third quarter (eight points) and overall was very effective getting into the paint. Seven early points from Jake LaRavia was a nice boost, too.  Oh, 16 rebounds and stellar D from Deandre Ayton.  Overall, the Lakers changed some small things. They pushed harder on misses, especially in the first half, to find easier buckets or at the least force Houston to scramble a little defensively. They sent fewer doubles at Alperin Sengun. They found ways into the paint. They cleaned up the TOs.  All in all, a great end to a fantastic series for the Lakers. Even against a Rockets team missing Kevin Durant, to advance in six games when Luka Dončić didn't play, and Austin Reaves didn't appear until Game 5.  Lakers fans have plenty of reasons to be proud, even with an incredibly difficult challenge coming against Oklahoma City.    HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky    Everydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! 5-Hour ENERGY Get candy-flavored chaos with Fruity Rainbow 5-hour ENERGY®️ Shots - available online at https://5hourENERGY.com or Amazon   KALSHI For a limited time, download the Kalshi app and use code LOCKEDON to get ten dollars when you trade ten. Kalshi. Trade on anything.   DoorDashFrom tipoff to overtime, stay in your bag and order on DoorDash.Get snacks, drinks, gear — whatever gets you through the season — delivered right to your door.DoorDash. In your bag all season long.   Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel.Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get two-hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets if your first bet wins.Visit https://FANDUEL.COMto get started — Play Your Game.   FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Lakers eliminate Houston with a dominant defensive effort. This is good stuff. It's celebrating a big series win next. You are Locked-on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks for everybody for joining Locked-on Lakers on a very exciting Friday night, Brian Komenetsky, Andy Kaminetsky,

Lakers get the job done and then some in Houston. They eliminate the Rockets. 98 to 78 is the final score. A big, big victory for the Lakers, obviously using, as you can tell, by the 78 part, Andy, a dominant defensive effort. Houston weren't great, but I mean, the Lakers really did everything you would want them to do in this game to limit Houston's capacity to score. And they got enough.

They got enough from LeBron at different times of the game. They got enough from AR at different times of the game. They got a lot from Rui throughout the game. But just good bench production, excellent defense from DeAndre Aden, plenty to like in this one most to like Andy. In fact, they won the game. They're moving on to the second round. Yeah, it's funny, actually.

this game was in a lot of ways, not just what I expected from the Lakers in game five, and I think what you expected for them in game five. It's also what JJ Redick expected. He actually said after the game, quote, attention to detail was the important thing tonight because we didn't have that in game five. And you can make any excuse for the quick turnaround,

the overtime game, them trying to stave off a sweep in game four. We didn't have attention to detail in game five. we had it tonight. And I thought this was a game where their energy and aggressiveness was super high. But also, to JJ's point, the attention to detail and execution was really high. And don't let the Lakers final score of 98 fool you in terms of how they were executing the offense. Tonight, I thought they actually really ran good sets. There was a lot of good ball movement, a lot of good body movement,

a lot of activity. They made it harder for Houston to defend them. Shots just weren't falling on a regular basis other than really LeBron in the first half and Rui the whole time, particularly from deep, he hit five threes. But I thought what they were doing out there offensively was really well orchestrated. Just sometimes shots don't fall. Yeah, for sure. Today's episode is brought to you by Fandul. Right now New Customers can bet $5.

and get $250 in bonus bets if your first bet wins, head to fanduel.com to get started. I think part of what accounted for, you know, an improvement in-shot quality. And it's funny, like the Lakers shot 40% from the floor. They did not have a particularly strong shooting night, particularly strong offensive night. But where it comes from matters.

And, you know, obviously the rockets were got off. from everywhere on the floor. They shot 18% from three point range, 35% overall. But the Lakers finally won the three point battle again. They out threeed the Lakers 12 to five. So they're plus seven and three pointers. They were 12 of 28 on the night, 43%.

So they made the higher value shots, if nothing else. So that makes a big difference. They could have hit a free throw. They would have won this game by even more. I agree with you. I think the biggest difference between the first game five and game six, along the lines of attention to detail, they didn't turn the ball over for a year. Ten turnovers, which is a great number.

That in and of itself is going to address a lot of the issues. You obviously give yourself more possessions that way, but you don't give them easy possessions. you don't give them opportunities to run and run in the move. I forget deep into the third quarter, I think the Rockets had four points in transition. Like it was a really good performance in that way. And that is in part because you don't turn the ball over. Obviously, making a few threes here and there does it as well.

But the other thing the Lakers did, particularly in the first half, was very consciously and very aggressively get the ball, get the ball up the floor. Even if it didn't turn into a fast break opportunity or points in transition or whatever, just by getting the ball up and pushing the pace,

I think it made Houston a little reluctant to crash the offensive glass. And then I think it also made it so even in a half court set, the rockets were not set. They weren't just staring at the Lakers and say, okay, now begin whatever it is, going to do. So pace and turnovers. That's what it was from that. That was a big part of the way. Attention to detail. Follow the gameplay. Be disciplined about doing this every freaking time you have the

opportunity. And also with the amount of ball movement they had and ball movement with precision and managing to move the ball without turning it over, moving it with purpose, a lot beyond the fact that it was creating good shots for the Lakers. That was a really big part of, allowing LeBron off ball to get into post-up positions. And even sometimes starting from the high post or even beyond the elbow closer of the arc and backing his way down, if he didn't need to have the ball and the other Rockets, defenders were following the ball, you would see him just backing himself down, backing himself down, getting to the places that he wanted.

Like the first half of this game, LeBron had so much. control over it between fast break opportunities that he had, post-up opportunities that he had, moving the ball. There was a great stat, Stan Van Gundy noted, at halftime. LeBron had five assists. The team only had 11 other baskets other than his. In the second quarter, he outscored the Rockets 14 to 13. He slowed down a bit in the second half. You know, he finished with 28 points, 10 of 25 from the field. But the first half of this game, whether you're talking about in execution or just tone for the rest of the team, LeBron did so much to help establish the terms of engagement.

And that's before, I'm sure we're going to talk about it, the defense the Lakers played team-wide and also, I think, the tone being set by Marcus Smart and DeAndre Aiton. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, I think maybe we'll probably spend the second half of the episode almost entirely on what they were doing defensively. I just, I liked, it is tremendous what just seeing a couple shots go down early can do. You know, both for your enthusiasm and dedication to the game plan when, you know, they got an early, you know, obviously. really was hot the entire game, but they got a three- Dan Van Gundy was over the course of this broadcast,

like falling in love or affection or however you want to put it for Rui. Like every shot Rui hit, Stan Van Gundy was gushing over him. I was ready for him to either fill out adoption papers to take Rui home with him or the camera to show that he was getting like a Rui Hachamora tattoo, while calling this game. But point of fact, man, he wouldn't have been alone. A lot of Lakers fans would have been right there with him.

And it was, Rui's, by the way, his game on both ends of the ball, or both sides of the ball was very good. He had six rebounds. He had a couple, he had one block, and it was a block that you could tell he was mad because it came right on the other end of a no-call under the basket that he really should have gotten.

He responded, well, first he responded by being really pissed off, at the ref. But then once he got back into the action, he responded with a monster block. So, yeah, and, you know, he was obviously, you know, the five of seven from three was significant the entire game. But they got, you know, a three out of Knard. They got a three out of Jake LaRavia early, which was a huge one. And some fast break points from Jake as well. Yeah. I mean, Jake had, I think, you think he finished with, he finished with seven. seven points, all of them, I think were in the first half. So, but like, that's a big deal.

They're building up that lead to get seven points from an unexpected source. We talked about this actually on the short show. It was sort of like you were ready to pull the trigger on Nick Smith, but the idea being like, you got to find somebody to give you seven points. And they got it from Jake, which is great. And, you know, Austin, I think got off to a really nice start in the sense of getting himself into the paint, establishing the ability to make the rockets

move and respect that driving ability. And then when LeBron started to cool off a little bit, eight of Austin's 15, came in the third. And so like when they really needed it. And that was sort of, that crushed

any lingering hopes that the rockets could get themselves back into the game. So in that sense, it was a solid, solid, night on a lot of levels for the Lakers, not spectacular, but solid offensively, where the Lakers really shine, Andy was on the other side of the ball. And so let's talk about defense and the reason they're going to the second round next.

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So it didn't take super long. By the way, join the everyday club, check it out for at least $5 a month, $50 a year, gets you an ad-free version of this program, Locked on Lakers, as well as access to the Locked on Lakers Discord channel, and the locked on across the NBA channel, talk to other hosts and other NBA fans. So again, locked onlakers.com or it's in the show notes, check it out. The Lakers won this game defensively.

You hold the team to 78 points you're doing really good work even when that team is a team like the Rockets who have struggled. That's a college basketball score. Yeah, it is. And I think, you know, obviously the individual performances of DeAndre Ait and his ability to guard Alperin Schengun one-on-one, Lakers spent, did significantly less doubling of Schengun, which is actually something. we talked about for Friday's short show. It was like, I'd stop doing that. And they kind of did. And Aitin's ability to guard him one-on-one made far fewer opportunities for him to find the open guy,

run against an unbalanced floor. We mentioned the turnovers, limited Houston's opportunities for easy points. Lakers did a great job of forcing Houston to score against the set defense. So stuff like that. And then just, you know, cleaning up the glass. Houston had a lot of opportunities for offensive rebounds, Andy. There was a lot of shots. Lakers were very clean on that side of the ball.

Just all in all, everybody was rock solid on the game plan and executed it quite well. Yeah, there was a point in the first half where Houston was really working hard to get Rui switched on to Alpern-Shingon. I believe they did it in three consecutive plays. The first time Shangoon managed to back down Rui, and he got a lefty layup. But then the next time they did it, Rui forced a miss from Shangoon, and Shangoon clearly could not get all the way into where he wanted.

And then the third one, there's another switch, and DeAndre Aiton stayed with Reed Shepard really well, and he ended up forcing a missed floater on a drive. I thought Jackson Hayes, actually. We had talked about heading into, this game thinking about the rotation, how things could change, that maybe Jackson would end up having some of his minutes cut, if not most of them. Certainly.

Yeah, if that first shift didn't go well. Well, specifically because he was having issues guarding Shingoon, and he did a much better job in this game. I thought both Aiton and Hayes, there were several possessions where they were switched out onto Reed Shepherd or another guard. They both did a really good job with it. Mention Marcus Smart three blocks. He also drew three charges in this game.

What was interesting to me about this game, Brian, too, is it felt like in a lot of ways, particularly in the first half, as LeBron was establishing just a lot of control over the game, you started seeing guys kind of go back to the most logical slots for themselves like Marcus Smart, doing less ball handling, doing more of the proverbial little things or defense or hustle plays, physicality that you want from Marcus Smart. Like Luke Kinnard, he didn't have a big game scoring-wise, but there was much more

off-ball movement for Kinnard probably helped that, you know, he wasn't starting games with Thompson on him and the Lakers' fear of Thompson and just trying to avoid him. It becomes unavoidable when Reeves is out there. That's who Amen started guarding. But there was much more just action going on with Kinar. There was much more off ball movement. Again, he didn't actually. Not to interrupt me, but I think some of this is related to the pace question.

Absolutely. My favorite play with Kinnard was he missed the shot. I'm not even sure he took it. I forget. But it came up because we were talking about how, And JJ's talked about it, like his ability to put teams in the blender. That generally happens best on closeouts. And so, but to make that work, you have to force rotations from the opposition.

So somebody's got to close on Kinnard, like, is he going to shoot or is he going to put the ball on the floor? And so then that's when you got like, I was like, okay, when I saw that, again, I don't think they scored on the trip. But when I saw that play, I was like, okay, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, looks the way they want this thing to look. And so it was nice. There was also, though, another time where they were running Conard with a curl. I don't remember if it was off the age. First play, when he checked in, the first play they ran out of the time that was an ATO for him.

And Lakers do a great job on ATOs all year. But they ran a set play for Conard. Missed a shot. But again, ran a set play for him. And there was a play in the first quarter where they ran this curling act. for Conard, where he ended up setting up Rui for a three and just using him again more actively. We talked about it in a recent show. The rewatch I did of Game 5 specifically for Conard, what jumped out of me most was they're not doing anything with him.

He's just standing in the corner. And they're not looking his way. They're not giving him the ball. like I was kind of surprised he got four shots. This game, he only had six, but he was just far more active in it. He felt like he was a part of it more. I guarantee he had more touches. You know, when the NBA has that date out the next day, I'm willing to bet it will be higher

than the 27 he had in game five. And, you know, enough to, I just, I think it's really worth saying now that this series is over. DeAndre Aiton's energy and the consistency of that energy and activity over these six games was phenomenal. And given his reputation and the questions that are there about Aiton, and I get it, it really stood out over the course of this series, and including tonight. He was really, really good. He was the second best player for the Lakers in this series. Yes.

You know, LeBron was the best. Aiton was, I don't know. It's really, I mean, maybe make an argument for smart based on what he did in the first theory of it. If it, if it's not smart, it's Aiden. Yeah. And, you know, the scoring numbers obviously don't jump off the page in this one. Anyway, at seven points, 16 rebounds does.

And the other number that stands out is 78 for Houston and five of 12 from the floor from Schengen. Again, and again, one assist in parties of the Lakers just stopped sending these doubles and kind of played everybody a little bit more straight up. But I was just really impressed. You expect Marcus Smart to do, like that block that he had on, was it, who do you block? Was it Thompson? I think it was Thompson.

Yeah. But like in the charge he drew that, you know, the Houston challenged and lost, obviously, you know, that was against Shangoon. Like all of those things you kind of expect from smart, but, you know, Austin Reeves with really good hands over the course of the game. And, you know, in his, in relatively short minutes, Jake LaRavey getting there,

Rui, very attentive on the defensive glass and boxing out and not getting those, you know, backdoor cuts that he's sometimes prone to giving up. It was really, really well executed and disciplined. effort where the Lakers, I think part of the, you know, the energy from the Lakers came from seeing Houston can't score. Like we're, we are there in their heads. And all we need to do is keep them there. And, you know, I felt like the Lakers kind of bled confidence in game five after a pretty good start when they sort of couldn't, they thought what they were supposed to do was working.

and it wasn't, and it just made them really uncomfortable and unsure of what they were doing. That was Houston in game six. They just had no confidence in what they were trying to do to where the tough stuff didn't go down, and that bled into the easy shots and didn't go down either. It was fantastic. Really quick correction from Matt F. 5820 in the chat. That block was on Eason, not Thompson. Either way, it was spectacular.

Quite good either way. So look, the Lakers will move on. We'll have plenty of time because they don't play until Tuesday. We can all thank a really exciting end to the Cleveland Toronto game, which for reasons, I'm not going to lie, I don't entirely understand, means that the Lakers will not open their series against the Thunder until Tuesday that gives the Lakers. Two days off, they'll rest slash prepare on Saturday and Sunday.

They'll fly to Oklahoma City on Monday and play on Tuesday. It's a lot better than starting that series on Sunday. Again, thank you Toronto Raptors and a really miracle bounce for RJ Barrett. I don't need to understand the panic of it. By the way, the Raptors and Miracle Bounces. It's a thing. It's what they do. It's a thing.

It's the thin Canadian air. Toronto sea level, but that's okay. It's been kind of a bonkers playoffs. I mean, while we are talking about this game, Detroit and Orlando are going to a game seven after Orlando scored 19 points in the second half of their game. They were up by 22 and lost by 14. that is hard to do.

Even Houston looks at what Orlando did in the second half. They're like, that's terrible. At least we at them. The rockets are like, damn, you got suck. So, you know, pretty crazy. It's in the Eastern Conference at least, it's been pretty crazy. Western is all set. But the Lakers are moving on.

And, you know, we'll have time to talk about what the second round is going to look like and the very, very daunting task the Lakers face. but in the meantime, it is worth noting, and we'll certainly talk about it a little bit more on Monday, the Lakers deserve a lot of credit for winning this series. Even with Kevin Durant out, this was not a series that they were expected to win, and to do it in six games is impressive.

It's something about what they're doing there. Absolutely. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can hang out with over 38,000 subscribers to the channel. Everybody enjoy your weekend. No game to watch on Sunday. You know why because the Lakers took care of business. They already moved through the second round.

We all get to take Sunday off, or at least until the evening when Andy and I record. But you people out there, you can do whatever you want. And we will see everybody again on Monday.