HOUSTON _ At a timeout with 4:27 left in the game, Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Corey Brewer and Andrew Bogut walked off the court with a swagger.
Plenty of time remained on the clock, but they had an eight-point lead over the explosive Houston Rockets and everything seemed to be going their way. They were outmuscling the Rockets for rebounds, they were contesting and disrupting their 3-point shooting. They weren't playing like a 10-win team missing two starters.
It took a scrappy group of players who tend to show off against the toughest competition to finally stop the Houston Rockets.
The Lakers snapped a 14-game winning streak by the Rockets on Wednesday night, beating Houston, 122-116. James Harden scored 51 points, 14 of them in the fourth quarter, for the Rockets. Kyle Kuzma, given a surprise start, led the Lakers with a career high 38 points.
That the Lakers were shorthanded didn't stop them from jumping on the Rockets early. They led by 16 in the first quarter and 22 points in the second. Kuzma made his first six 3-pointers and his first eight shots overall.
But the Rockets wouldn't go so easily. By halftime they cut the Lakers' lead to just four points.
It wasn't the last time the Rockets threatened. Houston took a 78-75 lead in the third quarter, but that was the last time they led.
While Houston stayed close, the Rockets could never push the Lakers over the cliff.
With fewer than four minutes remaining in the game, Corey Brewer released a 3 pointer right in front of the bench belonging to the team that traded him away in February. The ball rattled back and forth inside the rim, then sank to give the Lakers a nine-point lead. Seconds later, Ball made two free throws to give the Lakers an 11-point lead.
Houston got within six points with 54 seconds left on a Harden layup, but a charge by Rockets guard Eric Gordon gave the ball back to the Lakers with 28.4 seconds to go.
It's the first win in a brutal stretch of games for the Lakers against the league's top teams and kept with their trend of playing better against better teams. They lost to the defending Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers by nine points last Thursday and lost to the NBA champion Golden State Warriors by two points in overtime on Monday.
This win, though, only offers a short respite _ in two days the Lakers will play the Warriors in Oakland.
