Night Goes Right, but Some Things Are Still Wrong

HOUSTON —  Perhaps this Laker victory over the Houston Rockets is best viewed from the perspective of a father with his son by his side, proud of the boy’s accomplishments but obligated by parental duties to point out the things he did wrong.

Bill Walton stood next to Luke Walton in a Toyota Center hallway after the Lakers squeezed out a 96-93 decision against the Rockets. Bill had finished analyzing the game for ESPN and now he had some personal analysis for Luke that didn’t focus on his two clutch three-pointers in the fourth quarter.

“Just talking about a few turnovers,” Bill Walton said.

Luke had four overall, including two in the fourth -- a charge and a bad pass -- when he attempted to drive the ball at Houston’s Yao Ming.

That’s the way it went for the Lakers, despite an exhilarating comeback from a 15-point deficit. There were so many flaws to this finale of a flawed trip, a trip in which three victories weren’t quite enough to eradicate the stench of that foul loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night.

Shaquille O’Neal reasserted himself inside, scored 28 points and blocked five shots, yet he missed 11 of 13 free throws and grabbed only seven rebounds. For the second straight time, he was outscored and outrebounded by Yao (33 and eight).

Kobe Bryant found his teammates for a season-high 13 assists, but he had trouble finding his shooting touch and made only 7 of 19 from the floor.

Gary Payton, who had a triple-double in Bryant’s absence Tuesday, once again couldn’t blend his game with Bryant’s and had only two assists.

The Laker defense that clamped down on the Rockets and held them to 40 points in the second half was “shaky” (Phil Jackson’s word) in the first half, when the normally low-scoring Rockets put up 53.

But the record shows that Walton, Bryant and Payton all hit their last shots, their most important shots. So did Derek Fisher, who made the most of some rare fourth-quarter playing time.

“It was just great being out there at that time in the game,” Fisher said.

“We found a way to get it done in the second half,” Jackson said. “Our bench came through big, and that was very important. Guys made key shots in key situations.”

The Lakers showed they could win a game they felt as if they absolutely had to win, to avoid slipping any further in the Western Conference race, to prevent the Rockets from the physical and psychological advantage of a season series victory should the two teams meet in the playoffs ... to remind the Lakers that they could respond when called upon.

Still, they should leave Texas feeling a little nervous.

Even when they played well, such as their 62% shooting in the first quarter, they couldn’t shake the Rockets. And when Houston’s defense dictated which Laker would shoot and where, the Lakers didn’t have the solutions.

Jeff Van Gundy brought that New York Knick brand of defense with him to Texas. They fight through screens. They close out on shooters. They don’t allow easy layups.

“This year they’re playing better defense, they’re better organized, they’re playing a different style of ball,” Jackson said. “We haven’t made that adjustment as a team to who they are, the identity of that team.”

And to think, this came right after the Houston paper said the Rockets’ biggest problem is they have no identity, that their style changes from game to game.

But the Rockets sure know what to do when the Lakers come to town. They run them off screen and rolls, they penetrate with their quick guards and they go at Shaq with Yao with the confidence that they can win the matchup.

This was call-out time. O’Neal heard it.

“I was told to play aggressive,” he said.

He did just that by going at Yao for four quick points, but then he got into foul trouble. He managed to make an impact in the fourth quarter, however, with 11 points -- the final two coming after he tripped Rockets guard Steve Francis and recovered the ball for a dunk.

This wasn’t as simple as Bryant coming back. The last time Bryant played here he was making his return after missing seven games with a cut finger.

This time he rejoined the Lakers after missing Tuesday’s game to attend a pretrial hearing in his sexual assault case in Colorado. He was involved in the game, but his timing and shots were off. He finally came through in the fourth, making a hanging jumper after he separated himself from Yao.

Shaq didn’t succeed in distancing himself from Yao in this game. The Lakers didn’t strike fear in the Rockets, who could leave pointing to any number of late whistles that were or were not blown.

But they got a confidence boost from the fourth-quarter play of their reserves, including Walton, Fisher, Kareem Rush and Slava Medvedenko -- a starter who will go back to the bench when Karl Malone returns. Medvedenko was useless the last time the Lakers came to Houston, making only one of 13 shots. This time he scored 13 points, grabbed six rebounds and aggressively pursued loose balls before one last reach caused him to foul out.

This night wasn’t about the superstars. It wasn’t very impressive. All it was was victory No. 39 in their 60th game.

“This is a result-oriented business,” a somber Van Gundy said.

Even with a team as dramatic as the Lakers, that still applies.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.