Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Lakers Beat Jazz, Face Rockets in the First Round of the Playoffs

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

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The Lakers roll on the last day of the regular season. They'll play Houston in the first round on Saturday. Just how good do they look going into the playoffs? We'll answer that next. You are Locked on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for tuning in to Locked on Lakers.

I'm Brian Komeneski with Andy Kemeniske. I want to let you know that today's episode is brought to you buy Fanduel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5 and get $250 in bonus bets. If your first bet wins, head to fandual.com to get started. The Lakers did not need to win on Sunday to hold on to the fourth seed in the Western Conference, but needs got nothing to do with it, Andy. They went ahead and won anyway, 131 to 107, the final score against the visiting Utah Jazz

or at least people wearing jazz jerseys. and the Lakers finish 53 and 29 on us on the season where Luca, LeBron, and A.R combined to miss, I believe, 73 games. So a solid end to the season. Plenty to look forward to as we will begin the first round of the playoffs Saturday night against Houston, 5.30 local time. All in all, Andy, a solid end to the regular season. Yeah, I mean, when you put that in perspective,

the amount of games that Luca, LeBron, and Austin missed combined, it's almost as many as Jake LaRavia played. Jake LaRavia being the only guy on the team who played all 82, one of I believe 18 players in the entire league who played 82, and the Lakers put out something. He's the first guy since Austin in the 23, 24 season to play all 82 games. And I think the 45th player in Lakers franchise history. to play 82. But just to put that in perspective, it really was a lot of absences over the course

of the season. That's before you get into the time that Marcus Smart missed or DeAndre Aiton missed or Rui Hachamura missed. They've had a lot of guys in and out of the lineup. And it's interesting, when JJ was asked after the game, what was something he thought over the last week that he's seen from this team that he's hoping they can carry into the playoffs? JJ said resiliency and just that the playoffs are really about resiliency and, you know, to invoke the cliches, not letting go with the rope. And he thought that over the course of this last week as they dealt with the shell shock of not having Luca and Austin right when it felt like they were a team that could maybe become dangerous in the playoffs to then get their collective mentality in the right place, it's something. obviously they need moving through the postseason to try to pull what will be considered an upset over the Houston Rockets. But when you really look back at the entire season, it's clearly something that they've maintained all year,

even if at times there have been some rough patches and it's been fair to question their resiliency. At the end of the day, they showed a lot of it. Yeah, I don't think there's any question. And I mean, it is a talent-based kind of system that we run on here. And the Lakers will need all the resilience they can muster, and they'll need all the mental toughness, and then lead all of that. The question becomes, and this is something that we'll discuss,

obviously in great deal between a detail between now and Saturday, like, do the Lakers have enough talent to get through a first, playoff series. They might have the resilience and they might have a lot of intangibles that work for them and all that. In the end, they're going to need at least a certain level of talent to be able to play at a certain level.

You know, high enough level, I should say. And, you know, I think if you look at what they did over these last three games, when they, like, you know, at the very least, at the time, we didn't know were they going to need you to win all three, were they going to win two to keep

home court advantage. And, you know, Sunday they go out and they beat Utah. And the starters played. And everybody played. You know, 17 minutes for LeBron. 29 for Rui, 26 for 8 and 26 for Smart. Knaar played 11. He came out a little earlier as I think there were concerns of aggravating existing injuries.

I didn't hear anything of anything particular about him afterwards. But, like, they ran out a lineup. up and went out and played the game and played hard and they won pretty easily. I think if you look at what they did over these last three games, obviously they are not playing as well as a 53 game Laker team would be playing. This isn't the group that'd be going into the playoffs with Luca and Austin and LeBron and a team that's rolling and all that. But I think you can make an argument that this group as it's constituted is,

playing with about as much confidence and with about as much belief as you can get when with five games to go, your entire like setup is completely ripped out. Like there's, you know, there's only so much progress you can make in a week and a half, but I think they've made as much as can be made. Well, I think a lot of the progress, honestly, was on the mental side and just reestablishing belief in themselves in what they're doing, in just the collective willingness to try to make the most of what they have to make the sum of the parts greater than what they would seem on paper.

And also, this is why after the Phoenix win on Friday, I said, I hoped that JJ opted and, you know, really the players themselves too, opted to play Sunday. I wanted them to play tonight. I didn't want them to play, you know, 30 to 40 minutes. And that's, you know, I thought maybe they would play the first half. And then the starters or some of the key rotation guys might end up sitting the second half. You know, LeBron sat the second half. Like you said, Kinnard did not play really beyond the first quarter or so, certainly not beyond the first half.

But I wanted these guys to get more reps, especially since Marcus Smart just returned. Like if Marcus hadn't been out this entire time, then maybe I would have thought, all right, you know what, whatever happens on Sunday happens in terms of, you know, possibly moving up the three-seat or whatever. They've been dealing with so many health issues. I don't care if everyone sits. But if they're going to try to, you know, in earnest to get an upset in this first round, it's going to require a lot of precision. It's going to require a lot of mistake-free basketball. And it's going to require everybody getting on the same page with a totally reconfigured offense that JJ talked about after Phoenix. They've simplified a lot of it.

We'll see what, if anything, they kind of add over the course of this week in practice. But, you know, LeBron's usage and his role in the offense has skyrocketed. Luke Kinnard and Marcus Smart now have responsibilities that just a week or so ago, nobody would have dreamed of them happening. But to me, it was important that they get these reps. And I was really glad that it seemed like everybody was on that same page that I was thinking about. It's more important that they play real NBA minutes against, if nothing else, a team that is not themselves in practice than it is to get the extra rest. So good on them, man.

Yeah, I mean, I think the concern for guys would be injury. And they, you know, it seems like, I guess with this possible exception of, you know, a little bit of mystery around Canard, it seems like they got through as, you know, whole and all that. And that's really getting the best of both worlds with this is like, you know, you avoid injury. You avoid anything catastrophic, you know, and all that. And, you know, you continue to build a little bit on top of what they did. And the performances were there, you know, this was not a great game from LeBron in terms of efficiency. He's been hyper efficient over the last few games. And Sunday, he wasn't 6 of 15 from the floor, four turnovers against 6 assists.

Like that's about as low end as LeBron has been. But in that, you know, Rui stepped up not just with 22 points, be it had 10 rebounds. Again, this is another example of guys needing to do things maybe a little bit outside their normal station. Rui is not known as a good rebounder. He is not even known as an average rebounder. He is known as a bad rebounder. And for him to go out and get 10 rebounds is a thing. Aiton was fantastic.

10 of 14, 10 rebounds, he had 22 points. He had three blocks. This is the kind of D'Andre Aiton, the Lakers are going to need in that first round against a very big Houston team. team, you know, and then you start to go down there and, you know, we're going to talk about Nick Smith a little bit between now and the beginning of the series about, you know, he was signed to the 15th roster spot, so he'll be the one going to the playoffs. He played pretty well in his 18 minutes on Sunday and, you know, Dalton Connect at least gets to feel good about himself. He had five of his six three-pointers on Sunday. They're going to, we talked about it.

We'll talk about it next a little bit too. Like they, they are going to be. to need to play some mental tricks like on themselves in this series this week and all this stuff and they can lean into plucky little lakers they can lean into nobody believes we can win win and all of that is true but fundamentally they also have to believe that they're good enough and i think that becomes the big question uh whether or not they are and like how good they have to be and how how how big of an upset would this be so we'll start talking about the mental state and where things look against Houston next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by game time.

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Download the GameTime app, create an account, use the code locked on for 20 bucks off your first purchase. That's code L-O-C-E-D-O-N for 20 bucks off. download the GameTime app today, and remember, it's gametime.com. Quick reminder about the Everydayer Club, you can go to Lockdownlakers.com and check it out there. It is a great way as we start into the playoffs to deepen the conversation, deepen the dialogue where you get access to the Discord channel that has Lockdown Lakers on it, but also all of the other hosts across the NBA.

You also get the show without ads, which we know a lot of people like. And so if you go to the and you check it out, it's five bucks a month, $50 a year, see if it's for you. See if those perks are something you'd enjoy. And if not, that's okay. We love you just the same. It's in the show notes too. So see if it's for you. It's hard to know how good this group is, you know, as constituted because the teams they were playing.

were either trying not to win or weren't very good to begin with or some combination. Phoenix is kind of locked in. They're banged up. They've been a terrible, terrible run right now, especially against good teams. The Warriors are all banged up.

They were basically locked in and sat a bunch of people when the Lakers beat them going into the weekend. And obviously Utah hasn't fielded a credible lineup since probably December. So it's hard to know exactly how good the Lakers are. They won all three of those games kind of handily going away. It's, I, they're not good enough.

They're not as good as Houston. I think that's fair to say. The question becomes, are they good enough to steal a series from Houston? If everything goes well and everybody performs to the sort of top of their capabilities. yeah this this is going to be an uphill battle man there's no way around it like i know the rockets for a while were entrenched in bad vibes and katy burner gate and all of that stuff they've been playing really well like they picked from the lakers perspective a bad time to get their proverbial bleep together um and they seem to have it together now like i still think there are some ways that the

Lakers can push. Advantages may be too strong of a word, but they can push certain buttons. I think against the Rockets, particularly if they, I think one of the big keys is going to be keeping games close. Like, I think if they can keep games close down the stretch, they will have one advantage over the, over the rockets, in that I trust LeBron in crunch time, the last five minutes, last three minutes, last minute of a game, I trust his decision-making and his ability to put guys in the right spots, find them for good shots more than I trust anybody on the Rockets.

And that is a really, that's a really big advantage. It does, however, require you getting these games down to the wire in the last five, three minute of the game. Like that, that in and of itself is going to be a difficult task, like trying to keep the thing close. Hopefully, the Lakers can try to find some way where they can be up and actually pick apart other weaknesses with the Rockets, but they are going to be the favored team, even as the road team, for a reason, because they are considerably healthier. You know, they've been missing Fred Van Vlead all season.

You know, they haven't had Stephen Adams, but they've got the guys that they basically have been playing with for the last two to three months, they're all there. The Lakers are missing two of their three best players, one of whom happens to be a top three at worst player in the league, top five at the absolute world. God tier guy missing. Right.

I mean, going into these playoffs without Luca Donchich, to say nothing of Austin Reeves, that is a BFD, and there's no way around it. But it helps that the Lakers just the mental side of this so far. They seem to be in a really good place. And I can't emphasize enough how much that matters. Yeah. I mean, you know, for all the talk about Houston and their vulnerability and this and that,

like they're a good offensive team. This is a top 10 offensive team. They're a very good defensive team. They're a top six defensive team. You know, we just at least using NBA.com's metrics for these things. And, you know, I think there is a perception with the Rockets. They can score where they don't, they just don't guard play. Like they're not a team with a lot of, you know,

littles that that can beat you offensively. And, you know, that helps the Lakers a little bit. But it's not like it's easy to overstate some of the, I mean, their offense can be pretty gross in all honesty. It can be. It can be. But like overall, you look at the results over the course of an 82 game season. They've been a top 10 offense.

And, you know, it's hard to be the criticisms of Houston. We're very similar like what you talk about, the criticisms of the Lakers and stuff like that, especially as they started to play well. It's like you're trying to separate them from the elite teams. Are they as elite as some of these other teams that are, that consider them, themselves legitimate championship contenders. And in that context, I agree. Houston's offense gets too gummy.

It gets too stagnant. Sometimes the lack of guard play against teams, especially if you can kind of pressure Alpey Shangoon and some of these movement points in their defense, you can gum it up a little bit. And the Lakers have played defense in a way that's made that possible. So I'm sure that's something they're looking at. But it's, that's different than is the offense bad?

You know what I'm saying? Those aren't the same thing. Houston has a good offense. They have a good defense. And like you say, that's why they're going to be favored. Over the course of the week, and we'll talk to guys on the network, and we'll bring in all kinds of voices to try to give a little bit of perspective about what this series could look like.

The question is, like, where can the Lakers press any advantages that they might have with the guys that they have? Is there somewhere that they can still push on a vulnerability from a place of advantage? And then the next question's become, you know, where are they going to have to find ways to kind of hang in with, you know, how can they mush the personnel together, who's going to have to,

you know, play differently, play better and all this stuff. Like, I think it's possible for them to pull off an upset. If I have to choose, I guess, between a healthy Houston team and a healthy Minnesota team,

which is basically what the Lakers were choosing from, I think I would have taken Houston. But the short answer is neither. It's like both of those teams would have been favored over the Lakers and rightly so. Yeah, we'll talk about again, obviously, over the rest of the show in the course of the week. I do think there are ways that I think there are ways that they can create issues for Houston even while under talented. because, I mean, the Rockets are going to have the higher talent level in this series.

There's no question. I think a lot of it is going to be reliant on the Lakers playing as mistake-free of basketball as they constantly can. Like, for example, like what we saw in the baseball series against the Rockets, the two non-consecutive games, the consecutive non-back-to-back games in Houston that the Lakers one. And in particular, they really messed up Kevin Durant with high double teams, ball pressure. He was very, I mean, he was openly flustered about it. He talked about it after the first of the two losses. He was basically venting from the podium. I think the Lakers can do more of that in this, in this

upcoming series. But it's going to depend so much on them forcing Houston to take the ball out of their own basket, as opposed to giving Houston opportunities to runoff misses or even worse, live ball turnovers. Things like that, that will be a real problem for the Lakers. And then you don't get the situations where you can start either doubling Durant up high or creating problems for Shengun in the post and hoping to force him into turnovers or just gum up those possessions. It's just, it's super important that the Lakers, on,

both ends, but I think particularly offensively, just don't give Houston those type of opportunities. It's real, so much of this is going to depend on their own execution on both sides of the ball. Yeah, I think that's the baseline is you just can't make any mistakes. And I will, next, let's talk about some places that I think the Lakers, I want to say advantages, because that overstates, I think there aren't going to be a lot of places. where they have advantages, like legitimate advantages over this team. Luca and Austin play, you have advantages offensively. You have advantages in creativity.

There's a lot of stuff that you can do that gives you a legitimate advantage. That's why they won those games in that baseball series you're talking about. But I do then there are some places where they can take advantage of things that can help them. And I want to talk about that next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Game Time, the NBA playoffs, they are upon us, literally. And where every possession matters, every matchups magnified, every game can swing a series. And right now, Fandals given new customers a great way to get in on the action. Here's what I like about it.

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knowing your taxes are being handled right. So head to turbotax.com slash local to find a store near you and book your appointment. So we're going to find out this week. One of the things that I think a lot of people will be paying attention to is the way they handle this week. The Lakers normally open on Sunday. They're opening in the primetime evening game on Saturday. You know, a lot of those traditional kind of openings and clothing,

who opens where and when or whatever have been modified in the era of the play-in game. So you tend to see the ones and twos open on Sunday just because the other teams have had to play their way in. But I think they're going to practice harder. I think they're going to go a little bit harder than they did last time. the series with Minnesota. JJ has already talked about how he regretted the way they used the week. The other thing I think they can do because the pressure will be on Houston. The Lakers go into this with very little pressure.

Nobody really expects LeBron to be able to elevate and lift the legs. This is not LeBron of 2013 or 2012 where everybody's like, well, that guy can go be a Superman and win a series just by himself. So it's kind of only legend building stuff that's available for LeBron in this series. And that takes some pressure off. Lakers are not going to be favored to win by anybody in this series. That will take pressure off. And I think for game one, game two, maybe, with this week off,

the Lakers kind of have the ability to build in stuff that, is a little weird or unconventional or to try to do things that can help them steal a game early to get out to a lead and hold on in game, whatever it might be. Develop a few things that are that are little unconventional, a little unexpected, and it's not going to be that hardly. There's not a lot of tape for Houston to look at with this group. Like this is not how the Lakers have played most of the year. And that sort of thing could help the Lakers get off to a strong start in this series. And, you know, game ones are always important, Andy,

but game one in this one is going to be incredibly important just for the Lakers to show that they can be competitive in the series. Yeah, there's no question. I mean, when you were talking about the pressure not being there on the Lakers, I mean, the playoffs by definition are, they contain pressure. I mean, there's simply no way around it. I didn't say there wasn't any pressure on them. No, I know.

Right. I know what you mean. I'm just saying there's no such thing as a pressure-free playoffs, but I agree with you that there will be more on the Rockets. Frankly, I think there's going to be way more on Kevin Durant than there would be on LeBron. I mean, LeBron, I think people are more looking at this postseason for LeBron, given the context with curiosity. I think there will be people rooting to. see LeBron do something incredible for his age and just, you know, if not the cap of his... I can think of two guys who are open for that.

I'm so open to that. Come on, old man. Let's see what you got. We're not the only two, I'm sure, but count me in that group. Let me tell you something. Your adopted cousins, Andy James and Brian James are super excited to see. We believe in cousin James. But I think what's going to be looked at for LeBron, like I said, is anything from curiosity to intrigue, to rooting interest, to maybe even skepticism.

But there's not going to be anybody reasonable, I should say. There will be people who look to pick apart LeBron because there's always been people looking to pick him apart, often for very unreasonable motives. But anybody being reasonable is not going to be looking. to pick apart LeBron for not being able to carry a team missing two stars in the playoffs at age 41. For Kevin Durant, though, if the Rockets lose this series, it starts becoming fair or not more of a referendum on Kevin Durant's effects on teams or lack thereof. The questions of how much does he really elevate the play of those around him, elevate the teams that he joins.

He won the championships with the Rockets, and he obviously contributed a lot. He was finals MVP for both of them, but he joined a stacked, made team. And fair or not, if the Rockets lose, this is only going to provide a lot of ammunition for the detractors. And KD can talk about not caring all he wants and having a, you know, he has a hell of a a hell of a career and there's no way around that it's a first ballot hall of famer one of the greatest ever that doesn't change but people are going to talk and he if in the very least he's going to hear it he's going to see it because he's online all day i um

of all the guys that i was worried about in this game on sunday and you know watching these reps and watching guys getting rhythm and and trying to him you know improve the all this stuff Marcus Smart was basically right behind LeBron in that group. And it is impossible to overstate how important smart is for any chance that they have to win. And that is both what he does for the Lakers offensively. I mean, Houston, I realize Gar, guys like Amin Thompson and they've got to, Tarisen. They got all these wing players

and guys like Thompson who are true stoppers defensively. You can't go into a series like that with one ball handler. And then, you know, like Luke Kinnard, who is way better than I think a lot of people had thought at this sort of thing.

But just limited in the sense that he's not somebody who can put the ball on the great pressure by putting the ball on floor and creating shots for himself. That's not really his game. And so you need more than two. And so now you bring back Smart.

And then you talk about Kevin Durant. Marcus Smart is going to be all over different matchups in this series. I do not think we're going to, like he, other than maybe like Schengun and Smart could end up on him on some switches or whatever. There's no question he will. I but like he's going to get you don't look at size you don't look at position you don't look at any of this smart stuff smart is easily their best total defender he's going to see durant he's going to see thompson he's going to see everyone in this and so you put him and it's another reason that he's so important is a series like this you can't ask lebron for example to both be this. the guy who can carry a team through a series like that

against Houston offensively, and then turn around and guard Kevin Durant for 40 minutes on the other end. That's not an ask. So Smart just becomes so important because of what he can

provide this team defensively across multiple positions. I also think, too, what he can provide offensively matters a lot because oh it does for sure well because i you are correct that they're going to be looking to take those type of defensive assignments off lebron if possible but it's also the playoffs and you're going to need lebron on both ends and that with that in mind it means what smart and luke canard can do as secondary ball handlers and playmakers and guys who can bring the ball up guys

who can actually do more than just grease the wheels, but actually get guys in position to score. Marcus Smart's had 17 assists in the two games since he's returned. Luke Kinnard, his playmaking counting stats at the very least, have gone down a bit over the last couple of games. You wonder maybe how much of that is connected to or related to that finger injury on his dominant hand. Hopefully the time off in between.

this game and Saturday can help along those lines. But smart, obviously, the greatest value he has is defensively, but he will be needed on both ends of the floor. It's why I wanted them to get these reps today. And I was glad that they didn't give a bunch of guys the day off. Like, they need to work the way they're going to operate in the playoffs where it's not, it can't simply be LeBron doing everything. Like he's going to be doing a hell of a lot.

Don't get me wrong. But they need other guys to be able to step up in terms of functionality. And what we've seen from Marcus Smart as a playmaker has been really, really important. I think from Houston's perspective, like they're over there talking about, like what are they going to do? The problem with Luke Kinnart is that he is, if you didn't like the Austin Reeves experience in terms of being exploited in the playoffs defensively, you're really not going to like the Luke Kinnart experience.

We'll get into some of the stuff like the why the Lakers may have chosen Nick Smith and stuff like that over Timmy for the final roster spot. But the way that Houston looks to explain, exploit potential matchups and things like that when they have the ball is going to be one of the really fascinating things that I want to ask our guests about over the course of the week, but obviously we'll have plenty of time. Real quick before we go really quick along those lines, the starting five tonight was LeBron Smart, Aiton, Rui and Knard.

Given the matchup and how Houston is a really big team. Like they're a really big, long team. It would not shock me if game one, JJ flipped La Ravia and Luke. It's possible. It's possible. It put Jake in the starting five purely to put another natural defender out there for such a long lineup. Sometimes Reed Shepherd's been starting, so maybe that starting look could affect JJ's look. But it would not surprise me at all if he flipped Luke and, um,

If he flipped Luke and Jake, and also it might help just distribute a little bit of ball handlers across 48 minutes. It's another reason that having smart back and fully healthy or as healthy as you're going to get makes a big difference. It provides a little bit of that optionality back into JJ's lineup choices. So we'll talk about that and many, many other things over the course of the week. Locked on Liquors on YouTube is where you can hang out with over 38,000 subscribers to the channel. We're into the playoffs, Andy.

It was a limpy couple of weeks to get there, but the Lakers closed strong, and they are going to give Houston their best over the course of this first round, and they do get to open at home. And that is a big deal. We'll talk a lot about the series to come. We'll see everyone next time.