{"id":49185,"date":"2026-04-26T00:04:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T00:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=49185"},"modified":"2026-04-26T00:04:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T00:04:32","slug":"lakers-edge-rockets-in-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=49185","title":{"rendered":"Lakers edge Rockets in thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Los Angeles Lakers, fueled by 29 points from LeBron James, beat the Houston Rockets 112-108 in an overtime thriller on Friday to take a 3-0 stranglehold in their NBA playoff series.<\/p>\n

James, the 41-year-old superstar playing in his 19th post-season, came up with a steal and a game-tying three-pointer with 13.6 seconds left in regulation.<\/p>\n

He couldn’t get a potential game-winner to drop at the buzzer, but added a steal and a block in a frantic overtime as the Lakers pushed the Rockets to the brink of elimination in the best-of-seven Western Conference series.<\/p>\n

No NBA team has come back from an 0-3 deficit to win a playoff series.<\/p>\n

“It was just a gutty win for us,” said James, who added 13 rebounds, six assists and three steals and wasn’t the only player gasping by the end of overtime.<\/p>\n

The Lakers will have a chance to close out the series in Houston on Sunday, a position many doubted they would be in with league-leading scorer Luka Doncic and teammate Austin Reaves sidelined by injury.<\/p>\n

With Doncic and Reaves absent, James said, the Lakers “don’t have the luxury of being passive or being complacent.<\/p>\n

“Our whole mindset is we have to do everything it takes in that particular game, in that particular moment, in that particular possession… because we don’t have a lot of room for error.”<\/p>\n

The young Rockets, with veteran star Kevin Durant out with a sprained ankle, were led by Alperen Sengun’s 33 points and 16 rebounds.<\/p>\n

They rallied from an early 15-point deficit and led by six with less than 30 seconds left in regulation.<\/p>\n

But a Houston turnover was followed by a foul on Marcus Smart as he attempted a three-pointer.<\/p>\n

Smart made all three free-throws to cut the Lakers’ deficit to 101-98 and set the stage for James’s game-tying basket.<\/p>\n

Sengun missed a potential go-ahead basket before James was off-target from beyond the arc and they went to overtime, Smart scoring eight of his 21 points in the extra session.<\/p>\n

No Wemby, no problem<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the West, the San Antonio Spurs erased a 15-point third-quarter deficit and swept to a 120-108 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers, despite missing star Victor Wembanyama as he recovers from a concussion.<\/p>\n

Stephon Castle’s 33 points included 11 in the fourth quarter and rookie Dylan Harper added 27 points and 10 rebounds off the bench as the Spurs roared home to take a 2-1 series lead.<\/p>\n

They had dropped game two at home after Wembanyama was injured in a hard fall.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old French star cheered from the bench as his teammates turned the tide in Portland, where they will try to build on their series lead on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Resilient Celtics<\/p>\n

In Philadelphia, Boston’s Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown scored 25 points apiece to lead the Celtics to a 108-100 victory over the 76ers and a 2-1 lead in their Eastern Conference series.<\/p>\n

In a game that neither team led by more than 10 points, the Celtics were up by five going into the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

Tyrese Maxey’s three-pointer briefly put the Sixers up 85-84, and Philadelphia were within one when Tatum drilled a three-pointer that pushed Boston’s lead to 100-96 with 1:57 left to play.<\/p>\n

Payton Pritchard added another three-pointer with the shot-clock winding down before Tatum — who missed most of the season after suffering a torn Achilles tendon in last year’s playoffs — drained a dagger trey that sealed it for Boston.<\/p>\n

“We just were resilient,” Tatum told broadcaster Prime. “We stuck with it. It’s a game of runs… you’ve got to answer.” AFP<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Lakers, fueled by 29 points from LeBron James, beat the Houston Rockets 112-108 in an overtime thriller on Friday to take a 3-0 stranglehold in their NBA playoff series. James, the 41-year-old superstar playing in his 19th post-season, came up with a steal and a game-tying three-pointer with 13.6 seconds left in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}