{"id":488456,"date":"2026-03-17T08:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T07:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=488456"},"modified":"2026-03-17T08:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T07:43:08","slug":"kevin-durant-takes-the-blame-as-lakers-doubles-stall-rockets-late","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/kevin-durant-takes-the-blame-as-lakers-doubles-stall-rockets-late\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant takes the blame as Lakers\u2019 doubles stall Rockets late"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"1813\" data-end=\"2191\">In the fourth quarter, the <strong data-start=\"1840\" data-end=\"1862\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/strong> repeatedly sent extra bodies at Durant, and <strong data-start=\"1907\" data-end=\"1928\">Houston\u2019s offense<\/strong> unraveled: <strong data-start=\"1940\" data-end=\"1953\">12 points<\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"1955\" data-end=\"1970\">9 turnovers<\/strong>, <strong data-start=\"1972\" data-end=\"1983\">4-of-16<\/strong> shooting in the final frame.<br data-start=\"2012\" data-end=\"2015\" \/>\u201c<strong data-start=\"2016\" data-end=\"2079\">I just felt like I lost the game for us tonight\u2026 It\u2019s on me<\/strong>,\u201d Durant said: <strong data-start=\"2095\" data-end=\"2108\">18 points<\/strong>, only <strong data-start=\"2115\" data-end=\"2141\">two in the second half<\/strong>, plus <strong data-start=\"2148\" data-end=\"2157\" data-is-only-node=\"\">seven<\/strong> of the Rockets\u2019 <strong data-start=\"2174\" data-end=\"2180\">24<\/strong> turnovers.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2193\" data-end=\"2558\">Durant said he has to \u201c<strong data-start=\"2216\" data-end=\"2252\">be smarter, better with the ball<\/strong>,\u201d and even adapt by spacing, screening or \u201c<strong data-start=\"2296\" data-end=\"2323\">just get out of the way<\/strong>\u201d in those moments, because the pace becomes \u201c<strong data-start=\"2369\" data-end=\"2381\">too slow<\/strong>\u201d when the doubles come.<br data-start=\"2405\" data-end=\"2408\" \/>With <strong data-start=\"2413\" data-end=\"2431\">Alperen Sengun<\/strong> out (lower back pain), the Lakers adjusted their timing, choosing to \u201c<strong data-start=\"2502\" data-end=\"2510\">fire<\/strong>\u201d rather than blitz, as <strong data-start=\"2534\" data-end=\"2547\">JJ Redick<\/strong> explained.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2560\" data-end=\"2941\">The Lakers improved to <strong data-start=\"2583\" data-end=\"2592\">43-25<\/strong>, widening their edge over the Rockets (<strong data-start=\"2632\" data-end=\"2641\">41-16<\/strong>) in the West\u2019s No. 3 seed race, winning despite <strong data-start=\"2690\" data-end=\"2701\">8-of-34<\/strong> from three.<br data-start=\"2713\" data-end=\"2716\" \/>They leaned on <strong data-start=\"2731\" data-end=\"2751\">Luka Doncic\u2019s 36<\/strong>, held Houston to <strong data-start=\"2769\" data-end=\"2775\">35<\/strong> points after halftime, and echoed the defensive theme: Redick said they can \u201c<strong data-start=\"2853\" data-end=\"2885\">beat good teams with defense<\/strong>,\u201d while Doncic credited \u201c<strong data-start=\"2911\" data-end=\"2939\">effort and communication<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Final in Houston: Lakers 100, Rockets 92. \u201cI just felt like I lost the game for us tonight,\u201d says Kevin Durant after a fourth-quarter collapse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":377622,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-488456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2024\/03\/Houston-Rockets.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488456"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=488456"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=488456"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=488456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}