The Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets are preparing for their first round playoff series, which is set to begin on Saturday evening. Both teams will have five days of rest after avoiding the Play-In Tournament, giving head coaches JJ Redick of the Lakers and Ime Udoka of the Rockets time to study each other’s teams in detail.
This season, the two teams split their meetings. The Rockets defeated the Lakers decisively on Christmas Day by playing a more physical game. However, the Lakers won their last two matchups by taking advantage of late-game mistakes made by Houston. Despite recent injuries affecting Los Angeles, Udoka said he is not underestimating his opponent going into this series.
“Yeah, I mean, starting with tonight or even 15 games ago, we wanted to focus on ourselves and playing the right way regardless of that. Obviously with seeding and how close it is, it was too tough to try and pick an opponent. For us, obviously it’s fresh that we lost two games to them recently and then kind of flipped the switch since then. Had a really good game against them on Christmas and obviously (we) know they’re injured, but quality players across the board. You saw that in the Minnesota game, they had guys out or whatever the case may be, but it’s still the NBA. They have some really great players there, so we’ll have our hands full,” Udoka said.
One area where Los Angeles succeeded against Houston was doubling Kevin Durant late in games to force other players into making decisions under pressure. Udoka acknowledged this strategy will likely be used again but expressed confidence in his team’s ability to respond: “Yeah I think we’re better at getting to our spacing and not turning the ball over. That’s where a majority of the problems came from was not even completing the pass out of them… We’ve been up and down at times this year but had enough practice and seen enough that we know it’s something we’ll see again.”
With Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves currently out due to injury for Los Angeles, questions remain about how effective their offense will be during this series.
On defense for Los Angeles, Marcus Smart discussed his approach guarding Durant: “Brutal. It’s brutal, man. It’s brutal,” Smart said. “I mean, dude is one of the greatest to play this game and he moves like a guard with a big man’s body… He’s gonna make it tough for us and we’re gonna make it tough for him.”
As both teams prepare for Game 1 after extended rest periods—an uncommon luxury before playoffs—the upcoming matchup could hinge on how well each side adapts its strategies based on lessons learned during their regular season encounters.