Rockets defeat Lakers in Reaves’s return, force Game 6 in NBA playoffs

Jabari Smith Jr scored 22 points and Tari Eason added 18 ‌as the Houston Rockets fought off elimination for a second consecutive game and crawled back into their first-round, Western Conference playoff series with a 99-93 ⁠road victory over the Los Angeles ⁠Lakers in Game 5 on Wednesday.

Alperen Sengun scored 14 points with nine rebounds and eight assists while Amen Thompson added 15 points for the Rockets, who now trail 3-2 in the best-of-seven series after falling into a 3-0 hole. No NBA ⁠team has rallied back from a 3-0 deficit to win a playoff series.

“Everybody feels amazing,” Sengun said of his team. “Nobody is tired and today everybody showed it. Now, we’re going in front of our families, our fans, we’re gonna protect our home and come back here for Game 7.”

The consecutive Rockets victories ⁠have come without star Kevin Durant (ankle), who has only played in Game 2.

Star guard Austin Reaves scored 22 points off the bench in his return from an oblique injury and LeBron James added 25 points for the Lakers. ‌Deandre Ayton scored 18 points and grabbed 17 rebounds for Los Angeles, which will get a third chance to clinch the series on Friday at Houston.

“You have to give them credit,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said of the Rockets. “They made shots tonight, including some guys who don’t normally make threes. I think our defence, you hope 99 (points allowed) is enough to win, and we just couldn’t make shots. Missed some layups, certainly had some good looks from 3 that didn’t go down.”

The Lakers continue to be without All-Star Luka Doncic (hamstring), who was injured along with Reaves in an April 2 game at Oklahoma City. Both players missed the last five regular-season games and the first four playoff games.

“It was nice to get back ⁠out there, obviously,” Reaves said. “I wish I would have played a little better. I wish I would have made ⁠a couple more shots, but at the end of the day, I had fun out there and it was good to compete.”

‘Didn’t shoot it great’

The Lakers appeared determined to close out the series by taking an 11-point lead with a minute remaining in the first quarter and leading 28-21 after the opening period.

The Rockets stormed back to produce a 30-19 advantage in the second quarter and ⁠led 51-47 at halftime. Houston shot 6 of 12 from 3-point range in the second period and forced five turnovers.

The Rockets extended their advantage to 76-67 through three quarters.

Los Angeles used an 11-1 run to pull within ⁠88-85 on a James layup with 2:59 left in the game.

A steal and two baskets from ⁠Reed Sheppard pushed the Rockets’ advantage back to 92-85 with 2:20 left, and Houston turned four consecutive free throws into a 96-87 advantage with 1:32 remaining.

James and Reaves combined to miss three 3-point attempts over the final 28 seconds with James unable to pull the Lakers within two points when he was off target from long range with 12 seconds left.

“I missed a lot of ‌easy looks, and we didn’t shoot it great as a team,” Reaves said. “We’ll watch film, try to get better and try to win a game Friday.”

Udoka said of his side, “Big-time performances by everybody across the board. You’re starting a really young lineup and they are somewhat battle-tested now. … You want ‌to ‌show growth, and I think we did that tonight when they trapped late, handled it with poise, got the shots we wanted and made our free throws.”

After he averaged 25 points over the first two games of the series and 17.8 through the first four contests, Lakers sharpshooter Luke Kennard was held to one point on 0-of-4 shooting.