NBA Game Summary - Houston at LA Lakers

Los Angeles, CA (Basketball News) - Tracy McGrady scored 27 points and Yao Ming added 21, leading the Houston Rockets to a 114-100 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers at the Staples Center.

Scott Padgett chipped in 16 points for the Rockets, who snapped a three-game losing streak.

Houston moved a full game ahead of Denver for sixth place in the Western Conference standings, and pulled within one game of fifth-place Sacramento. Both those teams were idle Thursday.

"We do a lot of good things every night - we just don’t do enough good things for 48 minutes," Lakers coach Frank Hamblen said. "And the teams that we’re playing are all (fighting) for playoff positions.

"We give up way too many points almost every night and that means you’re not going anywhere."

Kobe Bryant posted a triple-double after missing LA’s last game with an aggravated shin injury. He scored 19 points with 10 rebounds and 10 assists.

"We played hard every possession," Bryant said. "We just had a couple miscues down the stretch in our execution defensively and it cost us.

"We are a young team and we are struggling. We are playing inconsistent basketball. In stretches tonight we played great and in stretches we didn’t play good at all."

Caron Butler added 24 points and 12 rebounds for the Lakers, who have lost five straight and 14 of their last 17 games. Chucky Atkins had 15 points in the loss.

The Lakers trailed by 12 points entering the fourth quarter. Jumaine Jones, Devean George and Bryant hit consecutive three-points during an 11-5 run that got LA within 93-87, but Houston quickly led by double digits again and the Lakers were never closer than nine points after that.

The Rockets have won two straight in this series after losing the previous four.

Houston carried a 33-26 lead into the second quarter and led by as many as 15 points twice before halftime, the last time coming when Yao’s bucket inside the 2:00 mark made it 57-42.

The Lakers shot just 36 percent in first half, but they trimmed their deficit to 60-51 with a 9-3 run to end the second quarter. McGrady led all players with 15 points in the half, and the Rockets shot 48 percent.

LA drew within four points several times during the third quarter, but Houston used a 10-2 run — led by four points from McGrady — to take an 88-76 advantage into the fourth.