The Los Angeles Lakers had a chance to finish off the Houston Rockets on Sunday night, but Luka Doncic was ruled out for Game 4 after missing time with a hamstring injury. The Lakers entered the game at 6:30 p.m. PT, 9:30 p.m. ET, with a 3-0 lead in the first-round playoff series and an eye on their first sweep since 2009-10.
Doncic had not played since April 2, when he hurt his hamstring in a blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Lakers said Sunday that he would not suit up in Houston, even though he was with the team there on Friday. That left Los Angeles to try to close a series that has been controlled by its own offense and by Doncic’s absence, with the Lakers still holding the best of the matchup as the clock moved toward tipoff on Peacock.
The stakes are straightforward for Los Angeles. A win would seal a 4-0 sweep, something the franchise has not done in a playoff series since beating the Utah Jazz in the 2009-10 Western Conference semifinals. The short-term question is whether the Lakers can finish without the player who led the NBA in scoring at 33.5 points per game and ranked third with 8.3 assists per game, a reminder of how much firepower they were missing even with the series already in hand.
That is the tension around every Lakers playoff night now: they are close enough to end it, but not full strength enough to make the end feel routine. Doncic’s trip with the team to Houston on Friday suggested a possible return, yet the decision to keep him out on Sunday made the team’s path clear. The Lakers had the chance to sweep, but they had to do it without the player whose season was built around scoring and creation at an elite level.
For the Lakers, the task on Sunday was not just to win another game. It was to prove they could close out a series, on the road, without waiting for their injured star to return first.
