Austin Reaves returned from injury in Game 5, but the Los Angeles Lakers still dropped the game to the Houston Rockets and never found enough offense after the first quarter.
Luke Kennard, the 29-year-old 6-foot-5 guard, finished with one point on zero of four shooting and two assists. He was benched for AR at halftime, and the Lakers were again left searching for answers after another uneven night in a series that has swung sharply on his shooting.
That swing was obvious from the start. Kennard opened the series with 50 points and eight of 11 shooting from 3-point range across the first two games, then went one of 11 on long-range tries over the next three. The Lakers lost Kennard's minutes in each of those games, and in Game 3 they needed a miracle comeback to survive while he struggled.
The numbers have pointed the same way for longer than this series. Kennard's regular-season minutes have gone down in three straight trips to the postseason, and his defensive issues remain hard to hide. In last year's sweep by the Thunder, the Grizzlies were outscored by 18 points in his 81 minutes, and his playing time also fell throughout the first-round playoff series against the Lakers in 2023.
For the Lakers, the immediate problem is not complicated: they head back to Houston on Friday night still trying to make shots and generate offense after the opening quarter. Reaves is back, but the series has already shown that one return alone will not fix what has gone wrong.
