After Anthony Davis was ruled out late, the Lakers couldn’t do much to make up for it and lost to the Rockets 128–94.

Without Davis, Christian Wood started the game, but by the end of the night, he had no points and four boards in 22 minutes. LeBron James had a quiet night, scoring only 18 points in 27 minutes. Rui Hachimura, on the other hand, came back and had the best offensive game of the season, scoring 24 points to lead the Lakers.

This makes L.A. 3–5 on the season. On Friday, they’ll go to Phoenix to try to get their first road win of the year.

Houston didn’t waste any time getting ahead 11-2, quickly taking control while Los Angeles had trouble getting their attack going.

There were some fun moments in the first quarter when LeBron James scored on Dillon Brook, who said he was “ready to lock him up.” The crowd seemed to enjoy the back and forth, and when James scored, you could hear cheers even though it was a Rockets crowd.

As expected, the Lakers had another bad first quarter tonight. They were behind Houston 32–19 after one.

Houston continued to be the best in the paint, getting 44 points just in the first half. Even though James played well and Hachimura came back after missing four games for safety reasons, the Lakers didn’t do much.

L.A. was already down by 21 points at halftime.

Each team scored a basket in the third quarter, which was fine with Houston because they were already ahead by more than 20 points. The Lakers never posed a threat, and at 3:11 James was done for the night. D’Angelo Russell got into a groove from downtown, making a couple of threes and scoring 15 points in the quarter.

James wasn’t on the court, and the Lakers were already down by 28 points in the fourth quarter. Guys on the Lakers’ bench, like D’Moi Hodge and Maxwell Lewis, got a lot of runs as the team did everything but kneel to end the game.

Main Points

They didn’t have a chance without Davis. Texas’ Alperen Sengun spent a lot of time in the paint and scored 19 points while hitting 80%.

The Suns are waiting in the wings, so things won’t get better for the Lakers. Kevin Durant is expected to be the only one of Phoenix’s three stars who can play, but that might be enough if Davis is out and the Lakers keep playing badly.