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

This team is an embarassment. The Franchise under Fertita is an embarrassment. Ime has no idea how to run an offense and the ones he has are outdated by a decade.

 

Its a coaching issue. Rox were more talented than the Lakers still lost.

Reddick played Kennard 36 mins Udoka played Eason who made all his shots 24 mins and Tate shot 1/5 and got a T. JD Davison outplayed Tate the last game and didnt even see any time.

Playing the wrong guys, having no game plan, having bad practice all of these make the roster worse than they are. Thats why GSW were lotto under Mark Jackson then became best team in history under Kerr

 

We have a 2x all star and a team that won 52 games.

The odds favor Rockets even despite KD injury saying even the real analysts agree we had the talent advantage.

 

but fans wanted Sheppard to play more. More minutes. More touches. More shots. More plays.

Didn’t they get what they wanted?

 

I mean I agree they'd be a 30 win team if they were missing that many players, yeah I agree with that, but that's true for many teams. I guess I meant more if they were just the same team last year.

At that point they are missing KD, FVV, Adams, yeah I think you take 3 vitally important players off any team they are going to struggle, especially when one is your 'leader' and the other is your lead scorer.

 

But they are still young. How many KD's come along?

Jalen is young as well

 

Clown show team takes their queues from the clown coach

 

i don’t get how its an advantage when they have a hall of famer possibly best player of all time and multiple guys that have played in conference finals and been solid professional players in their careers

 

Except literally last year it was the 2 seed without KD, so you're objectively wrong.

Yes, if you take KD off and FVV off and Adams off they are bad. You are taking three players off of a team, three very important players off of a team.

But they were literally the 2 seed led by 'fake' all-star Sengun without KD.

 

Agreed

 

lol the play-ins mean nothing. The NBA shouldn't even have them. They all have talent.

 

But now that you have KD, which one is so talented that they are "untouchable" this offseason? I'd argue that no one is.

 

Lebron is 41 dude. Their salary is tied to Lebron and Luka who are both making giga maxes. Their roster now is full of castoffs and vet mins.

 

Low BBIQ
Can't shoot
Turnover prone

Lakers were packing all 5 in the paint on defense and we still couldn't score.

Durant was limping just walking if he plays in this series I will be shocked.

 

All I am saying is, people look at the attempts and automatically assume every attempt was a good look

 

We had good looks as well, but outside of Reed our team sucks at shooting 3s...Stone and Ime both sucked at roster construction.
KD masked all of our roster flaws

 

@RB713

 

No not really, you have to see what you have in Reed. Point blank period. Nothing would be worse than trading him away and seeing him blossom elsewhere.

Like I said, I would be fine seeing him get more usage in the regular season, I just don't think this was ideal for him, he shot the ball too much, too much ISO from him, and he's not up to it. Maybe someday he could, he was getting some penetration, but his PG skills are still lacking and he has little to no confidence taking bigs into the paint, fears his shot getting swatted.

Still...like...he's a 2nd year player with barely a year of experience, people should chill out on the criticism. He's improved from year 1 to year 2 by A LOT, that means something, lets hope he takes another step at improving year 3?

I think Reed's main issue is his defense any way, I feel like when he's out there stretching the floor and being a shooter he plays that role about as well as one could. I mean, he was a legit 6th man of the year contender all season long lol

 

If he had played, we would have won. He not only scores, but the court spreads with his presence alone.

Maybe we are just cursed. Injuries and Playoffs are our strong point.

 

What a shameful showing.

I figured we'd have a bad start and the whistles would be bad all game, but my god. Usually, if we're struggling then I'm on here more often because its easier to complain post (when we're doing well its easier to be all-in paying attention ha), but I didn't even feel like coming in to commiserate.

It was just so bad. Everything that sucked during the season just all at once, and we never clicked. There was no fluidity, no halfcourt gameplan, no continuity, we couldn't even string 2 buckets together in any regularity or make FTs, and what's worse is our defensive effort was so poor.

Its embarrassing rooting for these guys sometimes. Sengun was in his head all game and didnt come alive until the 4th when it was already over, and Amen just cant seem to always find that extra gear.... and we NEEDED it.

Yes, Durant being out sucks. Adams out sucks. FVV out sucks.

But LA is now one of the worst teams in the playoffs due to injury, and they just straight up handled us. We struggled while they won every challenge, rimmed out when all their tough shots were falling, and no one stepped up big for us while Kennard was having the gdm game of his life.

I figured we'd wake up after the first, but there was a lot of hearing Switch say "not like this..." for the rest of the game. Geez.

Even when we went down 16... it was still kinda a winnable game because there was half a quarter left and the Lakers weren't even playing THAT well.

We were just playing that bad for an entire game.