The Los Angeles Lakers closed out the Houston Rockets in six games without Luka Dončić.
Nobody picked the Los Angeles Lakers to survive this series.
Luka Dončić, their leading scorer, missed all six games against the Houston Rockets with a hamstring strain.
Austin Reaves sat out the first four with an oblique injury, and then the Rockets ripped off back-to-back wins to turn a 3-0 lead into a sweat.
The Lakers finished it Friday night with a 98-78 blowout in Game 6, and JJ Redick did not hold back when asked about the doubters.
"Leadership was critical," Redick said after the game. "A few weeks ago it felt bleak after those tough losses, but our guys didn't let go of the rope. To be written off and still win a playoff series speaks to the character of this team."
LeBron Carried the Load
LeBron James was the whole show.
The 41-year-old put up 23.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 8.3 assists across six games, and most nights he was the only Laker who could create anything off the dribble.
He went for 28 in the closeout and Houston had no answer.
His regular season numbers, 20.9 points, 6.1 rebounds and 7.2 assists across 60 games for a 53-29 team, already showed how much Los Angeles leans on him.
The playoffs made it louder.
Getting Austin Reaves back for Games 5 and 6 helped, even if his impact showed up more in his Game 6 defense than on the scoreboard.
Reaves averaged 23.3 points and 5.5 assists during the regular season before going down in early April, and just having another ball handler next to LeBron loosened things up for a group grinding through every possession.
Houston made things interesting by winning Games 4 and 5 with their young core stepping up, but the Rockets could not keep it going without Kevin Durant, who missed five of six games.
Reed Sheppard went 1-for-10 from three in Game 6 and Houston shot 35 percent as a team.
It was done by halftime.
Now Comes the Hard Part
Winning this series earns the Lakers a second-round matchup with the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, who swept the Suns and went 64-18 in the regular season.
Game 1 is Tuesday in Oklahoma City.
The Lakers went 0-4 against the Thunder this year, including the April blowout where both Dončić and Reaves got hurt, so the gap on paper between these two teams is huge.
But Redick's words from Friday night feel worth remembering heading into Tuesday.
The Lakers were counted out after back-to-back losses brought the Rockets within a game of tying the series.
They were counted out the moment Dončić went down. Nobody would have blamed this group for folding.
They just did not.
Whether that matters against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder is a fair question, but writing off this Lakers team has not worked out for anybody yet.