In Friday’s victory over Philadelphia, Coach Kevin McHale compared the game to winning a poker hand with a 3 and a 4. If you want to continue that analogy, tonight was like winning a poker hand with a 2 and a 7 – the worst possible hand in Texas Hold ‘Em.
That’s not to say that these two games were completely the same. While the Philadelphia game was just frustrating, this was an abomination to the Rockets, the Thunder, and every unfortunate soul who was unable to change the channel. For 48 minutes, the fans got to watch brick after brick after blocked shot after testy confrontation which the referees did not do very much to quell. At the end of the night, a Houston team which shot less than 29% for the game and 53% from the foul line managed to escape despite just scoring 69 points. It is the lowest amount of points scored by a winning team since 1997.
If there is anything which can actually be learned from this game, it is how much good rim protectors can change a defense. While there are many great perimeter defenders in the league, the history of the NBA shows that a team’s defense almost always rises and falls depending on the defensive ability of their big men. The injured Thunder do not have a lot of offensive firepower, and primary scorer Reggie Jackson was shut down for most of the night by Patrick Beverley in his return to the court as well as Trevor Ariza. But the Thunder still possess four excellent defensive big men in Kendrick Perkins, Nick Collison, Serge Ibaka, and Steven Adams. Adams and Ibaka in particular terrorized any Houston players who came within the paint. They finished with 11 blocks, but even that understates their impact. By the second half, there were several moments when Rockets had good chances to finish at the rim yet hesitated due to the psychological impact of the multiple blocks.
With the paint almost entirely cut off, Houston was forced to rely on a jump shot which was just not there for any player. No one shot over 40% from the field, and Coach Kevin McHale grew so frustrated with the lack of offensive production that he sent Troy Daniels out onto the floor at the beginning of the fourth quarter as a spark plug. Even that failed to work, as Daniels did not score a single point.
Howard in the meantime was pushed around by the Thunder big men, who fouled him relentlessly to force him to the line. As great as Howard has been this season, his struggles with the free throw shot are bigger than ever before. After shooting 3-12 against Philadelphia, he made just 4 out of 13 free throws tonight. He is averaging just 47% from the line for the season. Thanks to Howard’s struggles and the Thunder defense, the Rockets scored just 2 points in the paint for the entire second half. Two.
But despite the struggle through the game, the more talented Rockets managed to stay ahead for most of the game. Harden and Ariza struggled to score just as much as everyone else, but they still managed to hit some big three pointers during the fourth quarter. Patrick Beverley got a key rebound at the end, Thunder guard Reggie Jackson bricked a three-pointer in the final seconds, and the Rockets won this horrible, terrible game. Let us hope that the Thunder will fall out of the playoff race early in the season, for I surely do not wish to face this team in the first round.
The now 9-1 Rockets will be rewarded for this defensive victory…by playing the even more defensive-minded Memphis Grizzlies tomorrow. In Memphis. On the second night of a back to back. Oh, and Terrence Jones will almost certainly still be out, which means that Houston’s thin frontcourt will have to cobble together a solution against Zach Randolph and a revitalized Marc Gasol.
That will certainly be interesting.
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