HOUSTON — Amen Thompson scored 23 points, Tari Eason added 20 and the Houston Rockets avoided elimination with a 115-96 rout of the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 4 of the Western Conference playoff series Sunday night.
Game 5 is Wednesday night in Los Angeles.
The Rockets got their first win in the series after falling into an 0-3 hole despite missing Kevin Durant for a third game thanks to a balanced scoring attack. Durant sat out a second straight game with a sprained left ankle after missing Game 1 with a bruised right knee.
“I’m proud of the guys,” Thompson said. “Backs against the wall, us coming to perform, but we know we can do that all the time. And I feel like today we were making shots. It’s the first time we were really making shots and we were capitalizing on the turnovers.”
Houston’s entire starting lineup scored at least 16 points with Alperen Sengun adding 19, Reed Sheppard 17 and Jabari Smith Jr. 16.
The Lakers were led by Deandre Ayton, who had 19 points and 10 rebounds before being ejected with about 5 1/2 minutes left in the third quarter for a flagrant foul 2 on a hit to Sengun’s head. His output wasn’t nearly enough to allow the Lakers to close the series out on a night when LeBron James didn’t have his best game.
He had 10 points on 2-of-9 shooting with nine assists and eight turnovers before sitting with about 7 1/2 minutes to go after scoring 19, 28 and 29 points in the first three games. But he wasn’t the only Laker who struggled. Los Angeles made just five 3-pointers after combining for 35 through the first three games.
James was 0 for 3 from long range, Marcus Smart missed both of his attempts and Luke Kennard was 0 for 3.
The Lakers had 23 turnovers Sunday night.
“If we want to win this series, we have to protect the ball and we have to defensive rebound and we have to be able to obviously bring that toughness which we did tonight,” James said. “I’m not worried about that. But the turnovers obviously killed us from start to finish.”
Houston looked good from the start in this one after squandering a six-point lead in the final 26 seconds of regulation in a devastating 112-108 overtime loss Friday night.
“The focus was good today and I think just in general guys have pride,” coach Ime Udoka said. “You obviously don’t want to get swept. And we understood how well we played last game and that was a big picture and the perspective we had was we played a really good three quarters, don’t let that last 30 seconds take away from what you did and I think it was a good carryover tonight.”
The Rockets led by nine at halftime and used a 12-4 run to start the third and make it 68-51 with about 8 1/2 minutes to go in the quarter. They were up by 19 later in the quarter before going on a 9-3 run to end the quarter and push the lead to 90-65 entering the fourth.
Houston led by 23 with about 7 1/2 minutes remaining when coach JJ Redick cleared the Lakers’ bench.
Ayton was ejected with about 5 1/2 minutes left in the third quarter after receiving a flagrant foul 2 for hitting Sengun in the face with his elbow and forearm. The referee announcing the foul called the contact “unnecessary and excessive.”
Durant was on the bench Sunday night to support his team after he was absent Friday night because Udoka said he was receiving treatment on his injured ankle.
