Lakers 99, Rockets 98
Steve Blake hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 1.3 seconds remaining as visiting Los Angeles stunned Houston for its first road win.
Jodie Meeks hit five of the Lakers' 16 3-pointers and led the way with 18 points. Wesley Johnson had 16 and Blake finished with 14 for Los Angeles, which lost an early 19-point lead but closed the game on an 8-1 run.
James Harden paced Houston with 35 points but missed a pull-up jumper with 12.9 ticks remaining that might have iced it. Dwight Howard had 15 points and 14 rebounds against his former team, going 5-for-12 from the line down the stretch as the Lakers chose to foul him repeatedly to stem a Rockets charge.
Howard made a pair at the line with 2:40 left to give Houston a 97-91 advantage but made just one of his next six attempts. Two foul shots by Steve Nash and a 3-pointer by Meeks pulled Los Angeles within 98-96 and, after Harden's miss, Blake took an in-bounds pass all alone from the left wing and buried it.
The Lakers made 11-of-14 3-pointers in the first half, including one by Meeks with 15.8 seconds left, to take a 64-50 lead into the locker room. Chris Kaman's jumper 4:19 into the third kept it a 14-point margin before Houston began to chip away, as Jeremy Lin scored eight points in a 15-3 burst that made it 74-72 late in the stanza, setting up a back-and-forth final quarter.
GAME NOTEBOOK: Houston missed seven straight free throws in the second quarter and finished 33-for-52 from the line. Howard was 5-for-16. ... Los Angeles was 4-for-20 from beyond the arc in the second half before Blake's decisive shot. ... Lin and Chandler Parsons both scored 16 points for the Rockets.