Last night's game was frustrating, but also definitely a step in a better direction than the last two games Houston played against teams from L.A. Since this thread is about the Howard-Asik pairing, here is how they fared in minutes together.
During their first stint together at the beginning of the game, results were not ideal. Missed shots and a few defensive lapses led the Rockets into another sluggish start. (Falling behind 18-8 is no way to help out the forum posters who are defending this line-up, guys!) One takeaway for me, though, was that the game would have looked drastically different when Asik subbed out if Harden, Beverley, or Parsons had hit any of their threes. During the 6:40 stretch with both bigs on the court, our players couldn't hit anything from deep, despite several open looks. This was not a case of being so well defended that they couldn't get a clean look at the basket, it just seemed like they started cold. One or two makes out of the five bombs from outside would have made a world of difference.
This slow start was also hampered by lackluster defending. There were more bright spots than in Houston's trip to L.A., but the perimeter defenders still did not do a great job of sticking with their man, allowing open shots that the Clippers were drilling early.
By the start of the 3rd quarter, the Rockets had turned a ten point deficit into a nine point lead. With the offense kicking in gear during the late first and second quarters, it was time to see if the Twin Towers could maintain the lead or even expand it. Things did not look positive at first, as the Clippers immediately cut the lead to four. But stifling defense and a few nice shots soon pushed the lead back to nine. During the eight and a half minutes Dwight and Omer shared the floor, Houston mostly maintained a lead of around 7-11 points. When Asik subbed out with 3:29 left in the third quarter, the Clippers had not yet been able to take control of the game and were down by seven points.
During the next few minutes, as the quarter waned, the Clippers were able to reassert their dominance. A seven point hole was flipped into a two point lead. The fourth quarter was not fun for the Houston faithful. We lost.
A takeaway for me is that if the Howard-Asik pairing will look like the first quarter version if the wings can't hit from distance. A major difference in the tandem's performances was that Houston hit 0-5 threes in the first, 2-5 in the third.
The Rockets looked pretty dang bad during the first quarter when Howard and Asik played together, then looked great with only one of them the rest of the half. But they looked quite good during at the start of the third quarter with them playing together, then looked lost when they went small. I hope they become more consistent as time goes on, and that they can combine the strong second half Twin Tower performance with the first half's excellent small ball. If that happens, it will be a thing to behold.
(i hope.)
that idea has been proposed here and it's a good one
