Five takeaways from the Lakers’ 134-95 loss to the Houston Rockets

Minutes after the Lakers lost to the Houston Rockets, Coach Luke Walton said his team wasn’t ready to fight.

That is uncharacteristic for this year’s Lakers. They’ve been a team of fighters for most of the season, but what they’ve been dealing with lately on the injury front is taking its toll.

Here are five takeaways from Wednesday night’s 134-95 loss.

1) Walton’s frustration was not that the Lakers lost. Rather, he was frustrated at the way the Lakers lost, especially in what they allowed the Rockets to do in transition.

2) There was a lot of conversation about the lack of communication defensively last night. Jordan Clarkson on why that needs to get better: “Right now we’re doing a lot of switching and stuff so everybody’s gotta talk because there are going to be mismatches on the floor — especially when guys like me, Lou [Williams] and Marcelo [Huertas] switching onto those bigs. You gotta find a way to communicate and get us out of the paint so it can be an even match. We’re figuring it out.”

3) The third quarter buried the Lakers. Julius Randle was critical of the starting five’s effort to begin it. “To start the half we had a chance to give ourselves a chance to win the game but we didn’t do it,” he said.

4) Any time a second-unit player winds up with the starting group, his minutes rise. Clarkson was that player on Wednesday, playing a team-high 35 minutes. That the Lakers are missing Tarik Black is as significant as their lacking two starters. This has been a team that relied on its depth and now they don’t have it.

5) The Lakers are now in the kind of losing streak they haven’t had yet this season, having lost four games in a row. How they respond to this before they get back D’Angelo Russell and Nick Young will say a lot about them. That chance will come Friday against the Phoenix Suns.

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Twitter: @taniaganguli