This was not a fun game to watch.
If I wanted to be pessimistic ( and I certainly have been this season), this was also not a win to be proud of. James Harden had to score 39 points and this team had to rally in the final five minutes to beat a New Orleans team which is only slightly more disappointing than the Houston Rockets. And on top of that, Houston caught a lucky break with injuries. Dante Cunningham, who just torched all of Houston’s power forwards with a steady stream of jump shots and corner 3’s, left the game in the third quarter with what appeared to be a knee injury. But a win is a win, and there were some positive signs. At the end of the game, the Rockets actually buckled down on defense, had James Harden do his thing, and perhaps most miraculously of all, hit a three-pointer. A bunch of key plays down the stretch made up for terrible shooting and ball handling. I mentioned that the Rockets buckled down on defense towards the stretch, but the halfcourt defense tonight was actually half-decent, especially in the second half. The big credit should go to Trevor Ariza. Coach Bickerstaff decided to have Ariza guard Anthony Davis instead of Donatas Motiejunas ( who got the starting slot tonight). And it actually worked. While Davis is bigger than Ariza, he was not able to actually leverage that size to pound the ball towards the basket. Dwight helped out now and then since he was “guarding” Kendrick Perkins, but Ariza contested Davis’s jump shots and held him to just 12 points. Whenever people look at the Pelicans for the past several years, there is always the outcry of “Why are they not giving the ball to Anthony Davis more?” But while it is true But while I talked about the halfcourt defense performing decently, the transition defense was just a disaster. One aspect of Houston’s disastrous season that has not been talked about much is that the Rockets do not have a lot of athletes. Harden is strong and clever, but he’s pretty slow and unathletic by the standards of a superstar guard. Howard, Josh Smith, and Ariza have taken steps back athletically. Clint Capela and perhaps Corey Brewer are the only Rockets I would say are true athletes, able to run up and down the court like a gazelle. What this means is that when the Rockets turn the ball over ( and they had 21 tonight), they just are not able to keep up with quicker and more athletic players. Today, it was Norris Cole who burned the Rockets in transition. Cole hit some good shots in the halfcourt, but he either outsped Harden to race down the court after a turnover or lobbed the ball to a streaking Davis behind for the alley-oop. That play hurt the Rockets for most of the night. Combine that shoddy transition defense with what may be the worst three-point shooting night in NBA history, and it is a miracle that Houston won this game. Fortunately for the Rockets, Harden was there to keep scoring whenever the game appeared to be slipping away, and the Pelicans also turned the ball over and allowed Houston key fastbreak opportunities. A change in the big men rotation? As mentioned above, Motiejunas was inserted into the starting lineup despite only being back for a few good games. While it is clear that D-Mo has a long way to go to reach his form last season, he did hit some nice shots in the post against Davis and provided some rare hustle on this team. But as Motiejunas was inserted into the starting lineup, a more interesting change in the big man rotation has occurred. For the first time in ages, Terrence Jones had a DNP-CD. Something like this was inevitable.The Rockets have six decent big men, and it is difficult for any of them to play alongside each other given their overall lack of shooting. With Motiejunas and Capela now healthy, it means that someone was going to be left out. But is this going to be a long-term thing or is Bickerstaff just experimenting? Is Jones doomed to sit on the bench fr the rest of the season? And if that is so, what does that entail for his upcoming free agency? The Rockets will almost certainly not resign both Motiejunas and Jones this summer, and the Motiejunas trade was partly done to free up playing time for the other bigs including Jones. But now that Motiejunas is still a Rocket, is Daryl Morey going in a different direction? Alvin Gentry may have ranted about how this loss means New Orlean’s season is over, but the Rockets will clearly spend the next month or so preparing for the future. Though why this entails signing Michael Beasley is something I do not understna.d
