Final score: Houston 99, Lakers 87. And it wasn’t that close. Not even. Not when the Lakers trailed by as many as 29 points in the second half.

At first, I was thinking of titling this “Rockets Embarrass Lakers.” But that wouldn’t be quite right.

The Lakers embarrassed themselves. It was far more about them than the Rockets.

Sure, the Rockets showed up, and played hard, without Yao Ming. They ran around and showed energy and grit. All that. You get paid to do that, and if you can’t play hard, at home, in the playoffs, right after your star center has gone down, well …

But it shouldn’t have mattered. The Rockets, despite all their “want to” shouldn’t have had enough to defeat, never mind destroy, the Lakers.

Except for this:

These Lakers are stupid, heartless and, too often, gutless. They are the worst championship-caliber (at least in theory) team I ever have seen. And perhaps the worst championship-caliber team in NBA history.

It was a perfect storm of disaster and, as I suggested in the item below this one, posted a few hours before the game, it was something we could foresee — which only makes it worse, because the Lakers should have foreseen it, as well.

It was disgusting almost from the opening tip. It was 14-4 by the time I looked up. And it degenerated from there.

The Lakers apparently were shocked — shocked — to discover that the Rockets would be running and gunning and playing at 78 rpm. (That’s very fast, for those of you too young to remember record players.)  As if the Rockets could approach the game in any other fashion. When the only size left on their roster was Luis Scola and backup Carl Landry.

And the Lakers adjusted to this … by doing everything wrong they possibly could.

They didn’t bother to get the ball into the paint to take advantage of their size.

They shot from the perimeter early and often, which only added to the pace of a game that was far too high for the lakers’ liking.

They repeatedly were suckered into collapsing on penetrating drives from Houston’s little guys and leaving three-point shooters utterly alone — and the Rockets put on a three-point-shooting clinic.

What was disturbing was how little the Lakers seemed to care.

If they hadn’t quit on the game by halftime, when they trailed by 18, they gave up by the midpoint of the third quarter, which opened with waterbug point guard Aaron Brooks driving past three Lakers for a layup.

This was a team-wide collapse. Kobe Bryant scored 14 on 7-for-17 shooting as Shane Battier locked him up. Pau Gasol got 30, but most of it was late, and he too often was pushed away from the basket by the undersized Rockets — who demonstrated how much more they wanted the game by outrebounding the bigger Lakers, 43-37.

Derek Fisher was so horrible, so useless, that the thought occurs that D-Fish, who is 35 in August, may have blown past his “sell by” date back in March or February, when his game went south.

He scored two points in 20 minutes today (his only three-point attempt was an air ball) … and would have needed a jet pack to keep up with Brooks. The Lakers were outscored by 26 points (!) with Fisher on the floor. I like Fisher as much as anyone; he’s a standup guy who has done some really good work for the franchise, over the years. But we need to accept that He Can’t Play Anymore. He can’t penetrate, he can’t make the three and he can’t cover anyone. His only notable contribution to this series was flattening Luis Scola in Game 2.  Which earned him a suspension. Perhaps it is no accident that the Lakers won Game 2, which Fish left early, and Game 3, in which he didn’t play at all.

Lamar Odom was wretched, as he so often is when it’s time to get serious. (Is there a less likable “good” player in the league? One who is good when you don’t really need him and awful when you do? Is there a lazier, less-interested defender? Is anyone as mentally soft as he is? Or who wastes as many gifts as he was given?) A line of 1-for-4 with six rebounds, three assists, two turnovers, three fouls and two (!) points in 25 minutes.

Trevor Ariza, too, stunk it up: 2-for-4, two rebounds, two assists, three turnovers, two fouls, five points in 23 minutes. (Yes, there was a reason the New York Knicks gave up on him.)

And, as we predicted, Andrew Bynum had no place in this game. At all. In 12 minutes off the bench, he missed one shot, had three rebounds and three fouls — and was scoreless.

So, yes, The Lakers were trashed. Crushed, by a team missing its two best players, Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, and its backup center, Dikembe Mutombo. With the Lakers at full strength and needing a victory so they could, potentially, wrap up the series in Game 5 at Staples Center on Tuesday.

If there was anything positive in this game, it was this: The Lakers’ smaller backups were not uniformly horrible. Luke Walton, Sasha Vujacic,  Shannon Brown and Jordan Farmar were an aggregate 12-for-28 from the field and, importantly, 6-for-11 from three-point range, and scored 33 points in 80 minutes. They also were, at times, able to keep up with Brooks (who scored 34).

What to do?

History has shown these Lakers can be embarrassed … but they don’t seem to notice, and it doesn’t seem to stick with them. Thus, they could be competent on Tuesday. Maybe even good.

But I recommend these steps.

–Derek Fisher starts, but if he misses his first three-pointer and Aaron Brooks gets past him a couple of times in the first quarter, park him. Sit him. Send Farmar or Brown out there. They cannot be worse. They just can’t be.

–Have someone remind Lamar that you are in your contract year, you idiot!  A guy who has as much talent as he does shouldn’t be wandering around and mailing in two-point games in the second round of the playoffs.

–Consider Luke Walton ahead of Trevor Ariza at the “3” spot. Walton hasn’t had a great series, and he isn’t quite healthy, but Ariza has been awful. Awful. Maybe his attention can be regained by watching the start of the game from the bench.

–Spend the first quarter pounding the ball into Gasol in the low post. Not even Kobe gets to shoot from the outside. Hayes, Scola, Landry … none of them can guard Gasol. Make it an inside-out game. Make the Rockets retreat into the paint, then see if someone can make a shot from the perimeter.

Man, was that horrible. The club has been involved in some other May Massacres (notably the Memorial Day Massacre at Boston in 1985, when they lost by 34), but those Celtics weren’t missing their two best players and three of their top eight. And those Lakers came back to win the next two games.

These Lakers may not be up to it. They have holes everywhere. They are mentally and emotionally weak. Apparently, neither Phil Jackson nor Kobe Bryant can threaten or shame them into playing hard and intelligently more than about half of the time.

They embarrassed themselves today. And I wonder if they ever care.