Okay, that’s not totally true. I expected the Houston Rockets to come out angry and give the Phoenix Suns the lashing of a lifetime. And they did…for the first quarter.
Then the old problems asserted themselves. Turnovers. Getting the defensive rebound. An inability to produce on offense with Harden on the floor. Lack of hustle. Poor perimeter defense. Those things which have killed the Rockets in game after game showed up again tonight, and the Rockets lost despite a hot shooting night from the 3-point line.
It was a loss just like all the others this season, and I intend to keep this short. There will be plenty of time for recriminations and thoughts of what to do next over this long, miserable offseason. But there are two things which should be taken away from this loss.
First, Coach Bickerstaff has to go. Down the stretch, in this most crucial series of games, Bickerstaff has shown that he has no idea what he’s doing with his rotations whatsoever. After starting K.J. McDaniels against Dallas, he then started Donatas Motiejunas tonight and had Corey Brewer as the first wing off the bench. Then in the second half, he abruptly switched to starting McDaniels again, and Motiejunas played just 12 minutes over the entire game. He’s jumped back and forth between playing Josh Smith and not playing him, and the same with Andrew Goudelock. Goudelock came in the second quarter as Jason Terry has struggled, and notably inbounded the ball off of
Smith’s butt.
There are justifications for each and everyone of those moves. Motiejunas, Smith, and basically everyone on this team has their problems, and Bickerstaff is trying to make the pieces fit. But the fact that he’s still doing that at the 78 game mark is the problem here. Kevin McHale may have annoyed Rockets fans with his love for small ball, but his rotations were consistent. Bickerstaff’s rotations are not.
I understand why the Rockets fired Kevin McHale at the start of the season, but I observed that it would not fix anything and it did not. Finding a real coach has to be Daryl Morey’s first priority in the offseason, and I think above all this team needs someone to fix its broken defense (though absolutely not Jeff Van Gundy).
Second, I think it is clear that Dwight Howard is gone. It’s a blasted shame, and I appreciate everything Dwight has done for the Rockets in his three seasons here. But he was lackadaisical on the defensive end both in this game and the last few, and I like the energy and effort which Clint Capela displayed tonight. While I understand that rebounding is a team effort, Dwight has to be blamed for the fact that the Suns collected 20 more rebounds than the Rockets.
It’s not like the Houston Rockets are the first NBA team to enter the season with championship expectations and then fall into the lottery. But in a season where the first warning signs came when the Rockets got blown out by bad teams like the Denver Nuggets and Brooklyn Nets, it is fitting that the Rockets knock themselves out of the playoffs by losing to another bad team.
There are three more games left in this season, continuing on Sunday against the Lakers. But if you don’t feel like watching them, I can perfectly understand. Because this team is not playing for anything anymore.
