Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily, presented by Amazon Prime for March 19, 2026.

I'm Dave Dufour here with Esperi and Will Gilleri.

Coming up, the Lakers handle the Rockets two games in a row.

Luca and LeBron look amazing.

Will Gilleries here.

We're going to talk about the Western Conference playoff race.

Good morning, everybody.

What's up?

Dave Dufour here, Esperi.

Our guy, Will Gillery, hanging out for the whole show. What's up? Dave DeFore here with Esperi. Our guy Will Guillory hanging out for the whole show. What's up, Will? I'm doing a while, man. I appreciate y'all for having me on. Yeah. Well, you were, you know, you cover the Rockets for us over at the Athletic, and you were there in the house for the Lakers just handing it to the rockets in in that fourth quarter like they tend to do that's right

they won the baseball series the back to back there in Houston they pick up the win last night

124 116 what was it like being in the house for Luca and lebron put it on a show like that no it's

funny because you said there for the lakers hammering them in the fourth quarter i I didn't know if you were talking about Monday or tonight because it was basically the same thing. The Lakers running away with the game in the fourth quarter. I think it was a little bit different tonight. I felt like Monday was pretty much just a full-on meltdown by the Rockets, just the way they couldn't do anything on offense. Durant was just turning the baller over, over and over again. Tonight, I felt like they did a lot of things better. I felt like they made some adjustments. They figured some things out. But in the fourth quarter, Luca just went nuclear. I mean, just completely lost his mind, hitting some crazy shots, throwing lobs up to Rui and LeBron there at the end.

They just couldn't do anything with Luca there in the fourth quarter.

And I just thought it was a really impressive performance by the Lakers because it felt like

the Rockets were taking control a little bit in that third quarter with some of the adjustments

they made.

But then Luca just shut the door and completely went crazy in then.

You know, I don't know if it was an adjustment. I just want to say because the Rockets, every bucket they get is tough and sometimes they hit them. It is a dice roll with them, right? Like there's no. And with the Lakers in that third quarter, I thought that they were sloppy. There were a lot of turnovers. I mean, you know, there's shot clock violation. They just, I don't think they were playing their best basketball coming out of halftime. And the Rockets hit some shots. That was to me what that third quarter was. I don't want to give them credit. I mean, look, I will also say, and not to like keep banging on the Rocket's drum here, but like it does feel like groundhogs day a little bit with the Rockets, right?

And not just when it comes to the Lakers, but it feels like every single time we talk about this team, it's the fourth quarter problems.

It's the clutch execution.

It's how they're going to get over the hump when it comes down to the crunch. And I don't know, we're almost done this regular season. Do you feel like there is any solution at all to the problem that they have going on in the clutch? No, I mean, at the end of the day, I do think if we don't want to get too nerdy, but I do think in this game, they made some adjustments where they were playing KD a little bit more off the ball. They were running some horns actions, getting him into DHOs rather than just basically handing the ball of KD and hoping he could be Superman like they were on Monday. And he got so aggressive, right? Yeah, and he was attacking early. He wasn't letting the double teams come during that third quarter. He really got going in that third quarter. And like you guys said, I think in the fourth quarter, they were running some of those same actions, but the ball just wasn't getting the KD. He was finding Jabari Smith in the corner and found Tari Easton a couple times. And those guys just weren't making shots. I felt like, you know, Jabarisman had a good game, but he went cold in the fourth quarter.

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