The Los Angeles Lakers started off their six-game road trip with a bang, defeating the Houston Rockets, 100-92, in a game that had major playoff seeding implications. Fresh off a Western Conference Player of the Week Award, Lakers star Luka Doncic led the way with a game-high 36 points, although he wasn’t exactly content with his performance.
During the walk-off interview after the Lakers’ win against the Rockets, Luka Doncic admitted that he could have actually played better than he did.
“It was not bad. I think I could’ve done a lot better,” Doncic said. “But all that matters is we got the win. We got to keep this rolling.”
From the get-go, it was evident that Doncic had the hot hand. He came out on fire in the first quarter, scoring 16 points in the period while shooting 7-of-10 from the field. Doncic has been on a tear recently as the Lakers have notched a few huge wins against playoff teams such as the Rockets, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves and New York Knicks.
For the previous week in which Doncic was named the West’s Player of the Week, he averaged 37.3 points, 10.7 rebounds, 11.0 assists, 2.0 steals and 1.7 blocked shots with splits of 46.9 percent shooting from the field, 42.5 percent shooting from the 3-point line and 79.2 percent shooting from the free-throw line. He capped off the week with the game-winning shot in overtime to defeat the Nuggets.
Doncic surpassed the late Kobe Bryant’s mark for the fifth-most 30-point triple-doubles in Lakers history. He also became the 10th player team history to have had a 50-point double-double.
While Doncic was the star of the show, the Lakers got strong contributions from the rest of the team in defeating the Rockets, and he was quick to point that out as well.
“It was great, I think we shared the ball great, especially in the last quarter,” Doncic said. “They scored 92 points, which for this Houston team, to hold them to 92 is pretty awesome. So we did a great job defensively.”
The Lakers will remain in Houston for a second game against the Rockets on Wednesday before traveling to face off against the Miami Heat on Thursday.
