Having been down by as many as 19 points, the Lakers came back to win 111-106 with LeBron ending on a team-high 29 points while adding 11 rebounds and six assists.
LeBron – who promised that he had activated playoff mode ahead of facing Houston – hit a clutch three and orchestrated a huge second-half comeback at Staples Center as the Lakers went 26-14 to see out a huge win.
Los Angeles are now back to exactly .500 with a 29-29 record which puts them 1.5 games behind the Sacramento Kings, who lost to the Golden State Warriors on the same night, and 2.5 games back on the No 8 seed, the LA Clippers.
And speaking after such an important win on their first night back from the All-Star break, LeBron hailed the improvement shown by his team-mates and insisted he is happy with who he has around him.
That will come as a huge relief to his Lakers team-mates, after much was made of the franchise’s attempts to land Davis before the trade deadline.
The Lakers failed to reach an agreement with the New Orleans Pelicans but it was made obvious that much of the roster around LeBron were available to the Pelicans as they sought another All-Star.
Yet Brandon Ingram had 27 points and 13 rebounds while Kyle Kuzma came up with 18 points, six rebounds and five assists to help towards a big win.
LeBron told NBA on TNT in his post-game interview: “We did a great job of defending without fouling the second half and then we got out and ran.
“We were able to get some easy buckets.
“I talked about it this morning the things we can’t do and that’s turn the ball over and we’ve got to make our free throws and we did that, especially in the second half.
“We’ve got a fresh start for us with this the second half of the season, the trade deadline is over with. This is our squad.
“I’m happy with who we’ve got, I love our squad. I look forward to seeing how we continue to battle until the end of the season.”
Houston star James Harden once agin managed to surpass the 30-point mark for what is now 32 straight NBA games but he had a difficult evening in southern California and drained just 11 of his 24 attempted field goals, going two-of-10 from three-point range.
LeBron added: “We tried to make it tough on him. Like I said this morning at shootaround, it’s going to be hard to stop a guy that’s averaging 100 points!
“You just try to make it tough on him, make him make tough shots and put bodies around him and I think we did that.”
The Lakers now have 24 regular-season games remaining as they seek to end the organisation’s longest-ever post-season drought and LeBron insists the second half performance should serve as an example of how they need to play from now until April 9.
The four-time MVP said: “We got to stay loose and have fun. We didn’t do that in the first half, I felt like we were pressing a little bit coming in off the break.
“We got the Laker basketball in the second half and it resulted in us getting a huge win.”
Having been All-Star team-mates, LeBron and Davis could go head-to-head on Saturday night (4pm PST/midnight UK time) when the Lakers take a trip to New Orleans to face the Pelicans.
It is not yet certain whether or not the Pelicans big man will be involved due to the shoulder injury that kept him to just five minutes in the All Star Game.