Sometimes, things don't have to be so complicated. For instance, when the Los Angeles Lakers four active NBA75 members (sorry, Dwight) — LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Anthony Davis, and Carmelo Anthony — each bring their A-game at home against a lottery team, the Lakers are probably going to win that game.

Albeit, barely.

The Lakers held on to beat the Houston Rockets for the second game in a row, 119-117, in a wild affair at Staples Center (no thanks to the officials, who bizarrely erased two late-game Kent Bazemore free throws from the record minutes after they occurred, retroactively costing the Lakers an important possession. Here's a good attempt at explaining the situation, from Jacob Rude at Silver Screen & Roll.)

Regardless, the Lakers turned up the heat after trailing by double-digits in the third quarter to the upstart Rockets, whom they defeated 95-85 on Halloween. (In the latest episode of Lakers Multiverse, I chatted with ClutchPoints Rockets beat reporter Salman Ali, who correctly predicted the Rockets would be less spooked by the moment and put up more of a fight.)

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4p0UAjusshG4f2oEWj3xNw?si=iH2xZILpTJ2NljU3TI25gA

How the Lakers navigate through growing pains has been the framing device to view their progress so far. On Tuesday, though the Lakers improved to 5-3 for one,  — er, four — simple reasons, and it wasn't the defense: their stars performed like, well, stars.

Broadly speaking, the simultaneous stellar performances of LeBron, Russ, AD, and Melo are indicative of a team finding its groove. More immediately, they scored 99 of the Lakers' 119 points.

(Funnily enough, as The Athletic's Bill Oram noted, it was the first time three Lakers had scored 25+ points in the same game since … Dennis Schroder, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Andre Drummond last year.)

Let's run through what each future Hall of Famer did on Tuesday at Staples.

4) Melo

The surprise Sixth Man of the Year favorite remains red-hot at home.

Coming off one of his most complete box scores in years, Anthony scored 15 points in 29 minutes on 6-of-9 shooting, including 3-of-5 from three-point range. The 19-year vet is now 20-of-29 from deep at Staples this season, and averaging 16.5 points per game. As I tweeted mid-game — and Frank Vogel spoke about Sunday — he's been dialed in and especially communicative on defense.

3) Russ

Westbrook is settling in, and down. He's not forcing the issue nearly as much (though still a bit) and is instead being productive within the flow of the game. He's pushing the pace, aggressively snatching important rebounds, and getting downhill. In other words: he's being Russell Westbrook, which is precisely what the Lakers want.

“It's always challenging going to a new system, to a new team, to a new group of guys,” LeBron said post-game. “You always try to see yourself fitting in. But when you're a special player, you've gotta fit-out. Russ is a special player, and he's been himself over the last few weeks, and we need that. We need the attacking, down-the-hill, most explosive point guard in NBA history — with him and D-Rose — and we need that. He's been bringing that and we love to see it.”

Westbrook had 27 points (10-12 FG, 7-8 FT), 9 rebounds, and 7 assists vs. Houston. More importantly, he committed just three turnovers — his third straight game with four or fewer, after pledging to do better following the 10-turnover debacle in OKC. He has nine giveaways since.

2) AD

Anthony Davis had 27 points (on 11-of-18 shooting) and 9 rebounds. He continues to be utterly dominant on the defensive end (3 blocks, 2 steals). On the downside: He and Westbrook continue to struggle with their outside shooting.

1) LeBron

In my humble opinion, LeBron was being too passive through the first three quarters. He was electric in transition (the ankle looks fine, obviously), and it seemed as though he could get to the tin anytime he wanted in a game that was largely bereft of defense.

Finally, the King claimed his court.

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Around the nine-minute mark in the fourth quarter, James put his put down. He scored 10 consecutive points, including isolation buckets on four possessions in a row. The Lakers never looked back.

“It was just about the moment,” LeBron said. “Just about the moment and trying to make the best plays to help our team win. And at that point in time, it calls for me to score. And I was able to bring us a few buckets at the time.”

LeBron led the Lakers with 30 points and 10 assists (and +8). He shot 13-0f-21 from the field and hit 2-of-4 from 3. His defense remains stellar when he decides to care about a possession. He was the best player in the arena. (He also eclipsed Mookie Blaylock for 12th all-time in steals, FWIW.)

“I wouldn’t say there is any difference now than two years ago,” Vogel said about LeBron. “He’s still playing at a super high level.”

Despite all the positive words I just typed, the Lakers only beat the Rockets by two, and Kevin Porter Jr. missed a makeable three at the buzzer. However, I'm confident in saying that when the Lakers three stars (plus Melo) are playing this well, they won't lose many games.

“It just varies. Sometimes maybe me, AD, Bron, whatever it may be,” Westbrook noted. “That’s the beauty of our team, and being able to have, you know, AD and Bron on the floor, you have to do everything, if the guys are going in, be feeding them, whoever’s going, whoever has the better rhythm, you know, we just kind of play off whoever that may be.”