Carmelo Anthony was the top scorer for the Los Angeles Lakers in a win over the Houston Rockets with 23 points, despite coming off the bench. Aside from being productive on offense, the 37-year-old forward also made 2 steals and blocked 4 shots. Lakers head coach Frank Vogel admitted that he did not expect to see such performance from Melo.
“I didn’t expect to see him have a defensive performance like he did tonight,” Vogel said postgame. “Forget about the steals, blocks and strips. He’s always good with his hands. But he was in the right position and when you watch him on tape coming in to this year, the effort’s there.
“I mean he plays hard on that side of the ball. We got to protect him in certain ways and we’re figuring that out and landing in some good space, good spots with that. We’re asking him to do things within our system, like, we have low man collisions which he was great with tonight.
“He’s willing to do all these things, he can do all these things. When he’s providing that kind of performance on the defensive side of the ball with the way he’s shooting it, he’s a huge part of our win tonight.”
