Do Lakers feel heat, or is it real humility?

Well, neither team has forfeited yet.

The Lakers only shrugged at the mounting criticism from national and local media, the ridicule and scorn multiplying quickly around the team favored to win the championship when the playoffs began a month ago.

The Houston Rockets certainly weren’t going to give up despite their last trip to Staples Center ending in a 118-78 punch line that became the Lakers’ largest margin of victory in a playoff game in 23 years.

Game 7, it is. Somebody will be done Sunday afternoon.

A day after another humbling loss to Houston in the Western Conference semifinals, the Lakers began acting like the team with a 1-2 record since Yao Ming went down because of a fractured foot.

They weren’t as loose as they were in the immediate aftermath of Game 6, with Coach Phil Jackson saying Friday they were “somber” and “sullen” at their training facility.

“I think there’s definitely a feeling of sobriety about the fact that we had such a big win on Tuesday and another poor performance on Thursday,” he said.

It wasn’t known if Kobe Bryant was still in a laughing mood -- he didn’t speak to reporters Friday, as has been his recent custom on non-game days -- but the Lakers weren’t exactly trading one-liners, and it had little to do with arriving back in Los Angeles at 2:30 a.m. Friday.

“I think everyone’s a little upset,” guard Jordan Farmar said. “Nobody really said much today.”

That the Lakers fell to the Rockets in Game 6, 95-80, was obviously still on their minds as they watched video before a light shooting session.

Lamar Odom’s bruised back was still an issue, as were the Lakers’ shooting woes and ineffective inside attack in Game 6.

Odom slipped out a side door Friday without talking to reporters, though he flashed a thumbs up and said “I’m feeling good,” before disappearing into the back seat of a sport utility vehicle that pulled out of the players’ parking lot.

The national media wouldn’t even give the Lakers one thumb up these days.

Scott Howard-Cooper, writing for Sports Illustrated, said the Lakers would be a “historic disappointment” if they didn’t win Game 7 and “forever remembered as one of the great underachievers.”

TNT analyst Charles Barkley, appearing on Dan Patrick’s radio show, said the Lakers’ habit of going through the motions was “going to bite them in the [rear].”

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports wrote that the Rockets might have figured out the Lakers’ weakness: “Punch the Lakers first and maybe they don’t punch back.”

Not exactly a clip-and-save kind of day for the Lakers’ media-relations department.

Meanwhile, Jackson tried to get across the point that one play could spark a championship run by showing a brief video clip from Game 7 in the 1992 Eastern semifinals between Chicago and New York.

On the play, Michael Jordan had the ball stripped by Knicks forward Xavier McDaniel, but Jordan caught up to McDaniel and stole the ball back as McDaniel went in for what looked like an easy dunk. The Bulls won the game and, four weeks later, their second of six championships in the 1990s.

Farmar got the message.

“One play can change the whole game,” he said. “We have to go out and make sure those plays go for us.”

It’s rescinded, technically

The NBA has rescinded the technical foul that Bryant was assessed in the second quarter of Game 6. It would have been Bryant’s fifth technical foul of the playoffs, bringing him within two of an automatic one-game suspension.

“There was a petition [Friday] morning . . . and it was rescinded,” Jackson said.

Bryant is now back at four technical fouls.

Bryant and Rockets forward Ron Artest briefly collided near the top of the three-point line as Bryant was trying to get past the Rockets forward without the ball during a Lakers’ offensive set with 2:03 left until halftime.

Bryant was called for a technical and Artest picked up a personal foul and a bloody tongue, which he later showed Bryant.

Had Bryant’s most recent technical foul been upheld, a warning letter would have been sent to the Lakers, as is the NBA’s norm when a player picks up his fifth playoff technical.

Players are suspended for one game after they pick up their seventh technical foul in the playoffs. They are then suspended one game with every other technical (ninth, 11th, etc.).

Bryant had a technical foul in Games 1 and 2 of the first round against Utah. He also had a technical in Games 2 and 4 against Houston.

TV time

The TV rating for Game 6 was a 5.4, representing about 5.3 million household impressions and 7.4 million viewers, making it the most-viewed basketball telecast ever on ESPN, according to the cable network.

The previous record audience for ESPN basketball was 5 million households and 6.6 million viewers for Game 6 of the 2006 Eastern finals between Miami and Detroit.

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mike.bresnahan@latimes.com