The most important event of the night was also the worst news of the night for the Rockets: Isaiah Canaan rolled his ankle badly and had to leave the game. For those keeping score, Isaian Canaan was the starting and only remaining point guard for a Rockets team that’s been rocked by injury. The game was an uphill battle without starters Dwight Howard, Terrence Jones and Patrick Beverley, and this latest loss only sealed Houston’s fate. The Rockets only scored one point in the first six minutes of the last quarter, an obvious sign of how much their offense will suffer without any point guards on the roster until Beverley returns. The Clippers may have their problems this season, but as a functional basketball team, they had more than enough to coast to an easy victory over a truly depleted team.
The problems with the offense have been troubling, but have now given way to a much more tangible issue: there’s nobody to run it outside of James Harden. Jason Terry will only play more point guard until Canaan or Beverley recovers, something which can charitably be called suboptimal. Trevor Ariza and Francisco Garcia will try to create for themselves, but they will fail, and it’s not their fault. The Rockets are in a nasty spot, and there’s not a good way to remedy the issues without getting some players back. That’s both good news and bad news; until a couple players return, the Rockets are basically toast, but they’ll be fine once that happens. For those interested in the grisly details, keep reading for your masochistic fix.
Blake Griffin was the star of the game, and nobody in Houston’s thin frontline could hold him back. His midrange shot continues to improve, and he’s just too strong for Donatas Motiejunas to guard in the post, not to mention when Francisco Garcia was matched up on him. His 30 points and 10 rebounds stole the show, and that was nearly unavoidable. Without a Dwight to guard the paint, teams with powerful bigs are going to have their way with the Rockets. Jamal Crawford also went off just long enough to bury the Rockets, scoring 21 points on 12 shots and logging a game-high +/- of 24. The Clippers are better than this incarnation of the Rockets, putting them in a tier with every other NBA team.
Harden had a mediocre game for him, something that seems to consistently occur against the Clippers. Players like DeAndre Jordan of the Clippers and Serge Ibaka of the Thunder present problems for him with their aggressive blocking tendencies. It also didn’t help that Harden went 0-4 from deep, leading to a very ho-hum 16 points, 4 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 steals. He was one of two players keeping the Rockets in the game despite his offensive struggles, and the game wasn’t truly lost until he sat early in the fourth quarter.
The other hero for Houston was Isaiah Canaan, who’s shown a lot in the last few games. His shooting and aggression on the break were key for the team, something that will be sorely missed until he recovers from his injury. In the second quarter, Canaan went up for a layup on the break, but ended up rolling his ankle and agonizingly jumping off his ankle. There’s no information as yet regarding the duration of his injury, but it looked bad and his absence will be felt. 13 points on 8 shots are exactly what this struggling offense needs, and that’s what he offered tonight.
Apart from Tarik Black, the rest of the lineup performed between mediocre and poorly. Black came away with 11 points, mostly due to successful dunks and cleanups. 9 rebounds was a perfectly good number, especially considering the trees he was stuck between. Other players in white were less impressive. Ariza had 13 points on 13 shots, and that was on the good side of things. Kostas Papanikolaou had a poor showing, going 1-5. Jason Terry was particularly outmatched, shooting only 1-6. The team looked lost without any ball handlers, and it wasn’t until true garbage time took over that the Rockets scored their first field goals of the fourth quarter.
There’s little good about that game, but there’s not as much bad as there could be. Rolled ankles heal, sore knees heal, and hamstring strains heal. The Rockets may have been completely lost on offense, but they didn’t look defeated. The fact that they kept it within 14 points for so long after losing Canaan was impressive, and speaks of a team ready to stomp on some opponents once they’re physically capable of doing so. This team is in for some very rough games, starting with a game against the Bucks tomorrow. This team is also going to be scary once they have a point guard. Get well soon, everyone.
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