By: Paul McGuire
When a basketball team loses by 1 point, you can normally point to this or that stroke of bad luck and declare that had it not been for that, the result would have been different.
There is no reason to do that tonight. For the fact is that the Rockets were lucky to lose by just one point. Aside from the bench and Harden’s scoring/heroics at the last minute, there is little to feel positive about when you look back on this game.
The biggest problem by far was Houston’s defense. The Wizards blew this game open in the third quarter and never fell behind for the rest of the game. And for the first eight minutes of that quarter, the Houston Rockets failed to grab a single defensive rebound. Aside from a few turnovers, the Wizards scored every single time during that period and secured an 18-point lead. Harden and Ariza ran under Washington’s screens nearly every single time, which left Bradley Beal and Paul Pierce open to tear Houston apart.
The power forward situation continues to be a concern. The less I say about Josh Smith tonight, the better. But I had believed that the idea of starting Smith was to solve the problem of ensuring post touches for both Howard and Motiejunas. Instead, Motiejunas spent very little time in the post tonight. It did work as Brewer continues to play out of his mind and Dorsey did contribute defensively. But what happens when Brewer inevitably regresses? Will the Rockets actually start going to Motiejunas or will we see something which will probably be less efficient offensively?
But as for Brewer? I have always liked Brewer as a player. The thing which distinguishes Brewer from Ariza is that Brewer is frantic when he plays. The guy is constantly moving and willing to throw himself on the floor to scrabble for steals and loose balls – Ariza is willing to do that, but he just is not the maelstrom of energy that is Corey Brewer. Brewer is not quite as solid defending as Ariza( he does go for the steal a bit too often) and is just a worse player overall. But I am very happy with what Brewer has contributed to this team beyond his great shooting.
Two smaller things:
- Harden just shot 6 free throws against San Antonio yesterday and 7 against Washington today, a low total by his standards.
- The second straight bad game by Beverley. He played acceptable defense against Wall, but continued his cold shooting spell and had whatever playmaking skills he does have cut off by Wall in return.
The Rockets have one more game left this December, but this past stretch has been disappointing. They have won just twice in the past six games. Both of those wins were against severely depleted teams (Portland without Aldridge, Memphis without ZBo), and yet Houston still needed overtime to defeat Memphis. There have been slight warning signs in Houston’s strong start earlier this season. Those signs are now sirens.
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and, like adonneus said, will make James the deserving MVP.
