The Los Angeles Lakers (17-18) halted their five-game losing skid in a 132-123 win over the Houston Rockets on Tuesday. David Fizdale earned his first win as Lakers interim head coach, and Los Angeles won their first ballgame since Anthony Davis sprained his MCL.

Let's spotlight five reasons why the Lakers were able to come out victorious in H-Town — in a game that was bereft of defense on both ends and got tense in the final minutes.

1) LeBron James

LeBron declined to address Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's COVID-related criticism after the game, but he channeled the great Lakers center during the basketball portion the evening.

LeBron registered his fifth straight 30+ point game — the only person over the age of 36 to accomplish the feat (he turns 37 on Thursday). He put up 32 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists for his 105th career regular-season triple-double. He played a full game at center for the first time in his life. He became the third player in NBA history to score 36,000 points. And so on …

 

“I can play any type of basketball game that the game presents,” James said. “This is Year 19 for me, and I’ve been successful at the offensive end my whole career. So if it’s a game that calls for a big lineup, I’ll be successful. If it’s a game that calls for a small lineup, I can be successful.”

“I’ve taken pride over the course of my career in being able to play five positions,” James added. Or at least know all five positions. Knowing the commands. Knowing if I’m guarding a big, what is the coverage. If I’m guarding a small, what’s the coverage. And always trying to keep myself in a position where I can be anywhere on the floor. So, tonight called for our team and called for me to start at center, and I just tried to be in a hell of a lot of plays.”

After the Lakers' Christmas Day loss to the Brooklyn Nets, Fizdale and Malik Monk lamented the fact that the Lakers were “wasting” LeBron's recent brilliance. Not so on Tuesday.

“LeBron's plus-minus at the 5 is so ridiculous right now,” said Fizdale. “To have guys out with COVID and stuff like that, I just took a gamble and said, ‘You know, I think that tonight's the night to start him at 5.'”

2) Malik Monk

Monk excelled, yet again: 25 points, 7-of-14 shooting, all-around play-making and energy, punctuated by above-the-rim theatrics. Since returning from 10 days in isolation and missing five contests due to health and safety protocols, Monk has dropped 45 points over the past two games on 15-of-27 shooting.

He's become a game-changing X-factor, especially as Talen Horton-Tucker continues to struggle.

3) Carmelo Anthony 

Melo has…stayed Melo. Facing the franchise that cut him, resulting in nearly two years in exile, the 10-time All-Star led the Lakers with a +17. His first three jumpers didn't even hit the rim. He finished with 24 points (9-of-15 FG, 4-of-8 3-point FG) and nine boards in 28 minutes.

It wouldn't take more than one particularly hoppy IPA to argue that Melo has been the Lakers' second-most valuable player this season.

4) Russell Westbrook

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Ahhh…Russ. After two days of heated debate on Lakers Twitter about Russ' impact for the 2021-22 Lakers, Westbrook responded with, well, a quintessentially Westbrook game.

Russ joined LeBron in the triple-double club: 24 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists. As was the case on Christmas (when he shot 4-of-20), Russ' rebounding was palpably impactful. Yet, he went 2-of-6 from the line, committed seven turnovers, missed a jumper off the top of the backboard, blew his sixth dunk of the season (as he infamously did on Xmas), and dribbled a ball off his own foot in the backcourt.

Down the stretch, he and LeBron found a groove in the two-man game. LeBron scored 10 points off three Russ assists in the final minutes.

“They took a step forward on connection tonight,” Fizdale said. “When you come together on that many back cuts, you’re starting to show that you’re getting to know each other a little bit, and that’s a good thing for us.”

“We’ve been able to kind of create some chemistry on things we like to see when defenses are trying to guard both of us together,” Westbrook said. “People don’t really want to switch, it gives us a good advantage. And it’s my job to be able to make sure I put the ball in position to make it easy for ’Bron to do what he’s able to do, and that’s finish around the basket.”

5) Tightening the rotation

Despite having multiple rotation players still in COVID-19 protocols — not including Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan — and Anthony Davis out with injury, the Lakers deployed an eight-man rotation on Tuesday. As we discussed on the latest episode of Lakers Multiverse, this is the recipe going forward: it doesn't matter whose available or qualified — at some point, the Lakers need to get more stringent with their rotation and hone an identity.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5c6tXfQrG0wOUKZ4v7F8Bc?si=d10aa4a8aa9141f9

“I think our fives still have a very valuable role on this team from the standpoint of there’s some great over-7-foot guys in this league that can just abuse you if you play small,” Fizdale said. “So we still want to keep our fives engaged. DJ and Dwight are important to what we’re doing.”

He went strictly small on Tuesday, including minutes for recent pick-ups Darren Collison and Stanley Johnson. LeBron approached 40 minutes for the second straight game.

“We’re very lucky as basketball people to get to watch what we’re watching right now out of this man,” said Fizdale, “and it’s just beautiful. I know the results haven’t been coming back the way we want them to right now, but the way he’s going about this thing and the way he’s playing, he can’t help but to galvanize us and really get this team to go in the right direction.”

 

“Based on the way the league is going, your small-ball lineup is something we can use and utilize,” Westbrook said. “And as the season goes on, we find ways to better utilize it throughout games to be able to give teams a different look from us.”