The Lakers let the Rockets believe. Now Game 6 becomes a mindset test

LOS ANGELES — When Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick met with the media after Tuesday’s practice, he looked like he would rather fast-forward to Game 5. He didn’t so much take questions so much as absorb them, watching the flight of jump shots as he gave concise answers to a variety of questions he’s already answered.

Austin Reaves? Game-time decision. Luka Dončić? Progressing, not ready. Rockets youth? Lakers up 3-1.

It’s not that Redick was dismissive. He was just … elsewhere. After all, the Lakers had known since April 12, the final day of the regular season, that the Rockets would be their opponent. Even while short-handed, the Lakers went up 3-0. They didn’t finish a sweep, but Tuesday’s practice felt like enough. They were on their home floor. They were getting two days of rest. This would be the final practice of the series. And they were getting a chance to respond.

After three minutes of routine and relatively curt responses, Redick was asked about the difficulty of closing a team out in a playoff series. That’s when he stopped watching the flight of jump shots.

“We have to kill them,” Redick said, locking eye contact with his first response that expressed what may have been on his mind that whole time. “It’s difficult to kill someone. We’ve got to — again, survival instinct says, I want to stay alive. So you’ve got to be able to kill them.”

Redick’s demeanor isn’t new. Back in 2015, before Game 6 of a series his Clippers led 3-1 against this same franchise, Redick, then a player, had a similar look, one that suggested there wasn’t much to discuss. His team just needed to get the job done.

“We certainly didn’t treat Game 5 like a Game 7,” Redick said then.

Those 2015 Clippers famously did not get the job done. They collapsed in Game 6 under the weight of Corey Brewer and Josh Smith 3s, then lost Game 7 in Houston, one of the defining blown leads of that era.

No team in NBA postseason history has ever blown a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series. Redick’s Lakers aren’t there, but after Wednesday’s 99-93 Game 5 loss, they are closer than they should be. It’s the first time the Lakers lost a game this season in which they held an opponent under 100 points, after going 7-0 in such games in the regular season and 2-0 in Games 1 and 2 in this series.

“You hope 99 is enough to win,” Redick lamented after Game 5. “We just couldn’t make shots. Missed some layups. Certainly had some good looks from 3 that didn’t go down. But we’ll take a look at the whole process and take a look at the substitution patterns, and figure out where we need to be better in Game 6.”

Reaves’ return on Wednesday complicated that process. The Lakers needed their second-leading scorer back on the floor, particularly after struggling with turnovers while relying on 41-year-old All-Star LeBron James and a backcourt of Marcus Smart and Luke Kennard.

But it was also not hard to anticipate that the Rockets could benefit from Reaves’ return as well. The Rockets were 7.0 points per 100 possessions offensively with Reaves on the floor in his 34 minutes, with NBA Advanced Stats (dis)crediting Reaves with allowing more field goals made (7 of 13) than any other Laker in Game 5. Reaves struggled to find his game — he was 4-of-16 shooting, had three turnovers through three quarters and missed 6 of 8 3-point attempts. Still, he got to the free-throw line, where he had 12 of his 22 points.

“I thought he was aggressive, did a nice job of driving,” Redick said of Reaves’ comeback. “He’ll find his rhythm.”

Reaves’ reintroduction may have had a domino effect on others, too. Kennard went from back-to-back 20-point games to begin the series to failing to make a single shot in Game 5, scoring one point in 31 minutes. In Game 5, he had only 27 touches, after averaging 59.8 touches per game in the first four games of this series, per Second Spectrum. Bronny James went from outscoring the Rockets bench by himself in Game 3 to not playing at all for the first time in more than five weeks. Jarred Vanderbilt was the ninth man in what turned out to be an 8 1/2-man rotation, getting blocked into the shadow realm by Jabari Smith Jr. in the first half and never getting into the game after halftime.

And the Rockets took advantage of it. Houston has won the “middle eight” minutes all series. Houston’s improvement over the course of this series has not been curbed by the Lakers. The Rockets have led for the entire second halves of Games 4 and 5. The Lakers built double-digit first-half leads in all four games of this series that were played with multiple days of rest. In Games 4 and 5, the Rockets controlled the second halves. Game 5 was the first time Houston went from down double-digits to up double-digits, running through the tape and winning a clutch-time game in the process.

Now the series shifts from execution to belief.

Houston has already had every single storyline thrown its way, from Kevin Durant’s injury to a Game 3 meltdown and head coach Ime Udoka identifying how soft and scared his players were. Udoka has no choice but to roll with his young players due to Durant’s ankle injury, and they have responded.

Jabari Smith Jr. has taken it upon himself to lead with his voice, proclaiming that his team is better.

“I don’t care who we play, I don’t care what team I’m on,” Smith said after leading the Rockets with 22 points, two blocks and four 3s in Game 5. “It’s just a mindset. But you got to get on the court and prove it. You can’t just say it, and then come out and tuck your tail. You got to go out there fighting and do the things that it takes to win. So I’m going to stand on that statement and we just got to keep proving it.”

These are the Rockets now. They’ve been here before. Last postseason, they forced a Game 7 after going down 3-1, only to fall short on their home floor. Now they return with something more dangerous: confidence and momentum.

Game 6 strips away everything the Lakers had in Game 5 — home court,  two days of rest (and stew over a blowout loss) and control of the series. Redick has seen what happens when a team assumes it will get another chance. He’s lived it.

“We have to kill them.”

Game 6 will be about whether the Lakers can finish it.