By: Forrest Walker
Things were breaking to give the Houston Rockets a surprisingly realistic chance to win a championship. The Warriors, their greatest concern, were struggling with the Grizzlies, the Eastern Conference in general was becoming even more of a tire fire, and the Los Angeles Clippers had a hobbled Chris Paul and a very tired starting lineup. All the Rockets had to do was not suddenly become a horrible team. They had remained an elite team for 82 regular season games and 2 playoff games, so things looked good. Then the Rockets became a horrible team, and now the Rockets are down 3-1 to a far superior Clippers team.
The good news is that Dwight Howard played well. The bad news is literally everything else. The Rockets played terrible defense and offense in the first half when they weren't fouling DeAndre Jordan endlessly. Somehow the team was down a mere 7 points at halftime despite playing some of the worst ball they've ever played. If anything changed, they had a real shot at taking a lead. Well, things did change. The Rockets played even worse and lost as badly as they've lost all year.
This season is lost. The Rockets are staring into the abyss, and the abyss is presumably staring back. It's hard to know, given the haunted looks on their faces. Endless frustration fouls and sloppy play don't paint a happy picture, however. The Clippers are doing whatever they want to the Rockets, whenever they want, and only Dwight Howard is making any attempt to resist. For whatever the reason, the Rockets were suckered into playing a sloppy, offensive style against the Dallas Mavericks and have yet to pull out of that nosedive. Instead of gathering themselves and returning to the fundamentals that got them 56 wins, the Rockets are turning tail and giving up.
Blake Griffin is the playoff MVP so far, and DeAndre Jordan is James Harden's kryptonite. Harden still ended up with 21 points on 12 shots, but he wasn't slashing the defense apart or finding open men. Trevor Ariza hit a fair number of shots, but he wasn't a key cog in an interlocking perimeter defense. He was one man trying to hold back a flood before it washed Dwight Howard to sea, and he was not enough. Dwight Howard buckled under the weight of an entire team coming at him and played very limited minutes before fouling out.
Corey Brewer played like a man possessed, but not in a good way. He was like the child in The Exorcist, spinning his head and vomiting on the people that care about him. His energy was wasted in a system that was unable to capitalize on the most basic fast breaks and open looks. Terrence Jones was badly outmatched, fighting a losing battle with the force of gravity as his particles compressed beyond their ability to stay intact. A depleted mass of stellar waste was left on the court, the imprints of Blake Griffin's monumental grasp still visible on the wreckage.
Jason Terry came to shoot threes, and that he did, a pale imitation of JJ Redick, the man he was guarding. Redick has the ability to play defense and find shots in rhythm. No Rockets had any abilities. Josh Smith played a mere 14 minutes because he managed to produce his least impressive outing of the season, somehow shooting too much with only two shots. He was a totem for Houston's inexplicable transformation, making poor choices on both ends of the court and emitting consternation upon a Clippers team that found only sustenance in this grim radiation.
Once the Rockets stopped fouling Jordan, once he had taken his 34 poison-soaked shots and converted 14 of them, the lid was off. The Clippers ran roughshod over the Rockets and did not stop. If the goal was to see how far a team could fall, the Clippers were masters of the craft and still could not find the floor of the cavern the Rockets are tumbling into. Chris Paul and Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan and even Austin Rivers kicked Houston into a the abyss, and the Rockets did nothing to hold onto the precipice.
There is freedom here, for Houston, for the Rockets, and for the NBA. There is no more doubt, now. The Rockets have fallen too far to recover. The weight of expectations can no longer break their backs, because that weight is plummeting below them in the abyss. There is plenty more down to go for the Rockets, but the good news is that it no longer matters. The abyss has been staring into them for seven games. The Clippers have given them no choice but to stare back.
