≡ Menu

Houston Rockets 93, Boston Celtics 87: A Victory. I guess.

Tonight, a Houston Rockets player carried the offense, hit some big three-pointers, and almost singlehandedly led the Rockets to victory, while showing off a defense which has improved a great deal compared to his previous two seasons with the Rockets.

And in news about other players, James Harden submitted what could be his worst regular season performance of his Houston tenure. But Donatas Motiejunas was there to pick up the slack.

The reality is that there is not a lot to be confident about in tonight’s victory. I do not expect Harden to play that poorly again in a long time – while Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder did play good defense on Harden, a lot of it was just the absurd amount of physicality which was permitted tonight and which I doubt we will see for some time. (And on a side note because I know it will be brought up: I have often seen people claim that Harden’s style of play does not work because referees “let them play” in the playoffs. It is a nice sports cliché, but there is no evidence that star players draw fewer free throws in the playoffs. In fact, LeBron and Durant draw MORE in the postseason.) And of course, Motiejunas was awesome with his career-high 26 points.

But as great as Motiejunas’s performance was, we have to remember that Boston’s frontcourt is dreadful. Jared Sullinger was bricking threes and layups like he is the future Josh Smith, Brandon Bass started off well in the first quarter but was invisible for the rest of the game, and Tyler Zeller never started off well. The two good things that happened tonight – Motiejunas and Josh Smith – are tempered by the weak competition they faced. And as for the bad? Oh, there was a LOT of bad.

Let us start with Harden. While Boston was allowed to be highly physical towards him, there comes a point when you have to stop forcing the issue and let the offense come to you. Harden was visibly frustrated by Jae Crowder and Avery Bradley in a way which I have not seen from him, and he continued to make mistakes as he lost his calm. This culminated in a terrible offensive foul with 30 seconds left where he blatantly shoved one of the Boston wings, giving them possession of the ball and an additional chance for them to close the gap. I also noticed that Harden started to ball-watch on the defensive end like he did in the past, which let Crowder slip open for some easy points.

Harden is the Rockets offense, and so it should really come as no surprise that Houston tapered off in the second half after destroying Boston in the first half with overpassing and the interior play of Motiejunas and Josh Smith. But the Rockets looked punch-drunk for that period. They made no passes, what passes they made were careless and did nothing to break down Boston’s defense, and they turned it over 12 times in the second half. They forced up shots which were prayers, and so scored barely more points in the entire second half as they did in either of the two first quarters.

After nearly blowing tonight’s game against Boston, Houston is now going to play Detroit tomorrow. The Pistons have lost four straight games since losing Brandon Jennings, but they are still a better team than the Celtics. Drummond and Monroe have the size to punish the smaller Rockets if they play like they did tonight in the second half, they have not played since Wednesday, and Detroit is a better defensive team. Here’s hoping that Kevin McHale gave the team a good speech on the plane, because tonight’s “victory” cannot happen again.






About the author: The son of transplants to Houston, Paul McGuire is now a transplant in Washington D.C. The Stockton shot is one of his earliest memories, which has undoubtedly contributed to his lack of belief in the goodness of man.

in game coverage
Read previous post:
Rockets Roundup: 01/29/15
Close