ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Lakers 4/18/2026 (Playoffs Round 1, Game 1)

U mean Patrick.

tilman is at Wrestlemania. He doesn’t care about this team lol

 

The Lakers haven’t made it out the first round since 2023, why do yall keep running with this bs conspiracy? This Rockets team is cheeks

 

Tari Eason

7-7 from the field
The rest of the team 28-86

 

Watch Udoka say the same old **** in the presser and rip the team no energy, didnt want to win, unprepared etc

 

We have to be way more aggressive. We need to run way more pick n roll.

 

No they won’t.

 

Haha you been watching a different rockets team. This team has been horrible vs undermanned teams and teams they should beat easily.

 

Zero easy buckets. It's insane how difficult we make the game of basketball look.

 

Plus, this is what we've seen all season from the Rockets so why act surprised now?

 

Jay Google, apologize please.

 

Everyone is going to have their complaints
And Alpi needs to be better (feel like I say that too often).

the main thing to understand is that it’s just Game 1 and the home team protected home court. Still got Game 2 on Tuesday and I’m confident the guys will come out with better play.

Lakers and their fans still sorry lol

 

Goon had to lead us tonight and it did not happen.


I know what happened when Jalen had to lead us and it did not happen @Salvy

 

Honestly. Trade fvv. Kd... see what we can get for sengun.
We need a star.
Missed out on scottie Barnes and Evan mobley. Organization no bueno
Get rid of stone
Keep ime
Bring in an offensive assistant coach
Not getting a pick this year. Got suns picks and not nets. Uggh

 

Michale was trash. He had harden

 

I'm not saying Ime is underutilizing him, I'm saying Ime's offense should look a lot smoother for a player that literally gets picked up at half court and the entire defense watches because they are terrified of him getting open shots. This too when they also have KD and Sengun on the floor and the offense looks absolutely hideous.

 

It looked like they hadn't slept in 5 days, 0 intensity, 0 heart, everybody played on offense with INCREDIBLE hesitation, they played in slow motion, got terrible contested shots all night long.

 

Wish I had something positive to say but…
Every single possession is just pain. No hierarchy, no flow, no shooting, no hustle. It’s only watchable because KD is so damn good at basketball and makes incredible shots look easy.

That’s as close as this squad gets to beautiful basketball.

No thank you.

 

He only played 22 mins. Meanwhile Kennard played 36 mins.

 

Can’t wait for the game 1 overreactions

 

The point is we were strongly considering bringing him back but according to reports, Ime squashed it when Harden talked about wanting to be the scoring champion. I was at the time, and am still, strongly opposed to bringing back that traitor James Harden to this team. But if the reports are to be believed, Stone would've brought him back. Doing so at that time would've been waving a white flag on the rebuild. The point of phase 1 was to find the league's future superstars, not build a team around stars of the 2010s that are past their prime.