LAKERS-Rockets Halftime Post

HOU 52 LAL 39

Welcome in to the halftime post of the Lakers' matchup vs. the Houston Rockets where the Rockets have a 52-39 advantage at the half.

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Julius Randle, 11 points, 4-10 shooting, 4 rebounds. They got Randle the ball early on and despite the poor shooting, he's doing his job getting inside and making shots. He opened up his three ball game as well during the 2nd quarter as he made a three off an assist by Kobe, recording his first career three. But aside from that, Randle was doing what he does best and that is attacking the rim and using his versatility to exploit bigger power forwards and that also translates to his activity on the boards, grabbing 4 rebounds already in the game.

Kobe Bryant, 7 points, 3-7 shooting, 6 rebounds, 2 assists. Kobe started to play well in the Tuesday game vs. the Bucks. The shooting stats say otherwise, we're not going to expect Kobe to give us spectacular performances on the day-to-day basis, but this game he's doing his job getting teammates involved and securing rebounds on the offensive end. He could've had more assists if some of the Laker players finished their shot.

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Points in the paint. I don't have the points in the paint stats for the Rockets, but based on the 2nd quarter and parts of the 1st quarter, the Rockets have a dozen points in the paint. That's because the Lakers are getting caught sleepwalking when in transition and that lead to many opportunities for the Rockets to get easy shots in the low post area.

Offensive rebounding. Even though the rebounding was close as the Rockets have 10 offensive rebounds compared to the Lakers' 9, the Rockets were able to cash in on most of their offensive rebounding to get 2nd chance possessions and points. The Lakers have to find a way to box out because the Rockets are a good 3 point shooting team and they have some inside presence in Dwight Howard that they can just dish the ball to if there's an opening.

Bottom Line

The good news is that the Lakers are not down by a lot. This Rockets team is a lot different than last season because they are off to a slow start, but they can get hot once Harden gets hot and every Rocket player feeds off of Harden's game. The Lakers need to come out with more energy and continue to hang around as much as possible until the moment presents itself in which they can finish the game strong and secure an upset victory. Let's see what happens.