I’m going to start talking about this Rockets team by not talking about the Rockets.
Instead, I’m going to start by talking about a team that existed 14 years ago and also won 56 games before making a deep playoff push. Specfically, the 2001 Philadelphia 76ers under Allen Iverson.
There is a school of thought on that specific team which challenges the conventional wisdom that Iverson’s heart and will carried that team. Iverson may have played an important role offensively, but the 76ers made the NBA Finals and won one game against an all-time great team on the strength of their defense and rebounding. Players like Eric Snow, Dikembe Mutombo, and Aaron McKie were good defensive players that were actually able to win games even when Iverson had bad shooting nights.
Well, that may have been true for the 76ers and their one offensive superstar then. It was not true for the Rockets and their one offensive superstar in Game 5. Because while Terry, Brewer, Ariza, and Howard all contributed, James Harden had possibly the worst game I have ever seen from him. And all the defense, Terry three-pointers, and Brewer transition buckets are not going to beat one of the best teams in NBA history when Harden plays this badly.
To be fair, I wouldn’t pin this loss entirely on Harden. In fact, let us start by looking at Houston’s two positional weaknesses – point guard and power forward.
Stephen Curry went off against Jason Terry, but that’s just part of being the (deserved) MVP. And against Chris Paul and Stephen Curry, Terry did far better than anyone expected of him before this series. Terry kept Houston in the game during the second half. He hit some timely three-pointers and even finished in the paint over Andrew Bogut, scoring12 points in the third quarter.
It appears that Terry plans to be back next year. As much as every Rockets fan once hated Terry for turning into Michael Jordan whenever he played Houston, he has been a treat this season and I hope Morey resigns him.
So, point guard was problematic, but that wasn’t a total surprise. The problem is what happened at the power forward slot.
As I noted earlier in the playoffs, Smith is a coin flip. The coin was good in Game 4 against the Warriors, and in Game 6 against the Clippers. It was bad tonight. Smith tried those pull-up three pointers very early in the game, and it didn’t work. He couldn’t finish at the rim, and he only had 4 rebounds. Smith played much better over this season than my ( very low) expectations of him. But due to cap shenanigans, Rockets fans should not expect him to be back next year.
But while Smith was a coin that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t, Terrence Jones was a coin which flipped badly every single time. I’ve liked Jones throughout the regular season, but he was a disaster both tonight with 0 points and a +/ of -13 and over these playoffs. There may have been something against Dallas, but I cannot recall a single moment where he just went nuts like Smith sometimes did and we all know Motiejunas can do.
If Smith leaves, and the Rockets start next season with the Jones/Motiejunas combo yet again, I think it is clear which one should be starting. Here’s a hint: it’s the one who has yet to play meaningful playoff minutes in his NBA career.
Now to talk about Harden. I am going to go back to Iverson as a comparison. Iverson loved to shoot the ball – if you’re reading this recap, you know this. He would accumulate 30+ FGA in multiple games, if not average it over an entire playoff series. Sometimes he would shoot the team out of the game, and sometimes he didn’t.
Harden didn’t outshoot the Rockets out of Game 5. He just out-turnovered them. Expect to hear that he set a NBA playoff record for most turnovers in a game approximately 34984393 times over the next few weeks, but it was just a terrible display both through his passing and ball-handling. Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes picked Harden’s pocket in a one-on-one situation multiple times like he was Jeremy Lin against the LeBron Heat, and then Harden threw too many passes which went nowhere.
Harden has the ball a lot and is a shooting guard, but he’s not a player who looks to score for himself first and foremost. He won’t hesitate to drop the ball off to someone else when he gets the double team. And it makes sense. As much as we love superstar narratives, the reality is that I prefer Trevor Ariza or even Corey Brewer taking an open jump shot over Harden taking some Kobe-style contested jumper.
But tonight, he did it too much. There were a few moments in this game when Harden had open shots, including a three-pointer that could have given Houston back the lead during the third quarter. But he instead took it inside and tried to force things that just weren’t there. As great as Harden can be, I know that there are times when we wish that he would just force the shot more than he did. Because while Harden’s 2-11 shooting was terrible, the 12 turnovers were even worse.
Am I suggesting Harden should play more like Iverson?
No, and there is no word in the English language which could make that “No” emphatic enough. But while people talk so much about how modern these Rockets are, I actually think that this is the team that would be best suited for the 90s. The Rockets this season were a team built around a single offensive superstar, with a few players who could score from time to time and defend but not much else. And they depended far too much on one player to create every thing on offense.
That player had a terrible game tonight, and despite good games from several other players, that one bad game overshadowed them out. Fixing Houston’s offensive dependency on Harden will be one of Morey’s main priorities over this offseason.
