By: Forrest Walker
Technically, the Houston Rockets won that game and moved to 8-1 on the season, tying for the best record in the league. Technically, their defense is still among the best in the league. Technically James Harden had 35 points. In the long term, those are the only things from this game that will matter. And the sooner this team can move past this win the better. It's best that everyone just let this game slide into the archives quickly and silently, like a roach down the drain.
Of course, if you actually want to get into what happened, fine. Just promise me (PROMISE!) that you won't talk about this with anyone else. The Rockets somehow dragged a win out of this game, shooting horribly the whole way. Nothing went their way, and they looked poisoned and tired. Perhaps somebody in Mexico City game the Rockets and the Timberwolves some poisoned pizza, inspired by the apocryphal tale of Jordan's flu game's secret genesis. Perhaps the Rockets were simply banged up and still missing two starters. Perhaps Houston got complacent while the Sixers needed to avenge a historic beatdown they had suffered the game before. Whatever the cause, it was ugly. It was low-scoring, and it was as close to a moral loss as you can get.
The game began with the Sixers going on a tear, forcing the Rockets to have to crawl, wounded, out of a hole. Harden's shoulder sported tape, Dwight Howard looked sluggish, and the whole team shot as though they were on the second night of a back to back, and not their opponents. Every time the Rockets gained a small lead, the Sixers would strike back, flipping the score back around. The biggest Houston lead of the game came with five minutes left to play, when Ariza hit a much-needed three pointer to put Houston up by seven. The rest of the game, before and after, was downhill from there.
The Rockets played the same brand of defense they've played all year, which is probably the only thing to be glad about. The Sixers, especially Tony Wroten, still found holes here and there, but it was a solid enough defensive outing. It had to be, given how awful the offense was. 7-34 is not a good shooting night from behind the arc. 62.2% on free throws is not going to cut it, especially when that means you missed 14 of them. The Rockets shot under 40% from the field and still won a game. The team tied for the best record in the league stole this win, and now they need to bury it in the west Texas desert until the statute of limitations runs out.
The Rockets went to the line 37 times and still looked like they should have gone more. The Sixers played the game many young, low-win teams do; they ran at the basket, they played physical defense, and they had nothing to lose. There's a flaw in Harden's game that gets exposed here, which is that he relies upon the largess of the referees. If he draws fouls constantly, the fouls eventually become the new normal. If a referee crew gets tired of his antics, or gets bored of calling so many fouls, or just gets used to a certain level of contact on defense, Harden's fouls can dry up, leaving him looking very silly as he runs into three defenders. This season, his drive-and-kick game has come through to counteract this, but tonight's Harden looked tired and pained instead.
Of course, he still had 35 points on 24 shots, grabbed 6 boards and dished 7 assists to go with 3 steals. The fact that he looked terrible while doing most of it shows how good he's become. So there's a bright spot! Dwight Howard's 21 point, 16 rebound double-double was also just fine. Look at those great lines! And, if you would, please go ahead and ignore how they both played 41 minutes while McHale was trying to tone down their burn. Don't even bother looking at the box score for the bench. Put that 2-17 shooting from the reserves out of your mind entirely.
The Rockets have been a very good team so far this season. They looked shaky in Mexico City and seemed to carry those shakes home with them. The bad news is that they looked like the undead on the court tonight. The good news, however, is that the undead notched a win for the real Rockets, who will probably show up in a few days. When the good Rockets come back, just make sure that we're all forgotten this game even happened. They say those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. This time, they're wrong. Let us never speak of this again.
