I can’t feel too bummed about it, because frankly at 3-0 down it looked like it was going to be a sweep. Harden et al. have shown so much potential over the course of this series that it’s difficult not to feel incredibly optimistic about what the future holds. And yet, for large parts of this game it felt like it was there for the taking before the Thunder pulled away in the final frame. The Rockets will have to take solace from pushing the #1 seed so far, and look to come back stronger in the Autumn.

I wondered whether the Thunder would be able to exploit Ibaka’s size advantage on Harden any better in this game than they have in previous outings. It looked ominous when Ibaka posted up on the first possession and sunk a short jumper. But after that they never really came back to it. Ibaka is not known for his post game, but Scott Brooks did say after the last game that the gameplan was to try to exploit that mismatch a bit, so I’m surprised they didn’t go to it a little more.

With the ultra-spread floor, Asik had a lot of open space to roll through. He was getting to the rim hard for some good looks around the basket. He and Brooks still need to develop a bit more chemistry – Brooks tried to force some difficult bounce passes, and we know by now that that’s not Omer’s cup of tea. However, as the first half went on you could see him picking up confidence in his ability to catch the ball on the move and the effectiveness of the play improved accordingly. The issue was that apart from that the there was very little on. The Rockets were not able to penetrate often enough to provide their three point shooters with many open looks (though to their credit, both Parsons and Garcia were still able to put in a few three balls). It wasn’t until late in the half that Harden was able to break loose and combine his threat from behind the arc with his driving game. Prior to that point the Thunder had been able to take advantage of the Rockets’ dry spell to build up a lead of as many as 11 before being pegged back to 58-54 at the half.

Lin checked in to the game late in the first when Beverley had to go to the bench with two fouls. It was clear that he was not completely healthy and unfortunately that translated into how he was used on the court. If Lin’s going to be out there, he needs to be handling the ball with regularity. But the Rockets ran most of the play through Harden and Brooks, relegating Lin to a spot-up floor spacer. This predictably did not work very well as it took away pretty much all of Lin’s strengths – there was very little in the way of a driving game, and the ball wasn’t in his hands enough for him to use his passing skills either.

It was too much to expect Martin to keep missing his outside shots. In the second quarter he became the focal point of the offense while Durant was on the bench and helped drive the Thunder back into the league. The Thunder appeared to have added a few wrinkles to their offense to help him get open as he was regularly able to get the slivers of space he needs to get off his quick-release shot. 21 points in the first half and it felt like he was more than making up for his mediocrity in game 5.

We also saw a lot more of Collison in this game (he was the player that Thunder fans were clamouring for Scott Brooks to play more), and he was a catalyst for a lot of the good things OKC did in the second quarter. Good rotations filled the lane and made it harder for the Rockets to execute their driving game, great work on the offensive glass got his team several more possessions and he also did some facilitating from the high post on the offensive end (there was one particularly Princeton-y play where Martin was able to get free on a back-cut – brought back memories of Adelman’s offense).

Parsons came out of the gate hot in the third quarter, draining three threes and energizing the crowd. Suddenly the tables turned and it was the Thunder who were struggling to generate any offense to speak of. A spot of zone made it difficult for Durant to score by himself, and it wasn’t until Reggie Jackson stepped up that the Thunder had anyone else to shoulder the scoring load. But with that zone no longer being a surprise tactic, eventually OKC figured it out and were able to go on a run. Closing out the quarter well, they were able to take a 78-77 lead into the final frame.

Unfortunately, the wheels fell off in the final frame. Durant started to read the extra defenders coming his way and found the open man. When that open man was Fisher, he buried his outside shots. In combination with some surprisingly solid defense on Harden, I have to (begrudgingly) say that he showed his value beyond the ‘veteran leadership’ that is widely noted as his only redeeming quality. Harden, perhaps running low on energy due to his illness, was bitten by the turnover bug again. Two costly live ball turnovers converted into easy run-outs blew open the game at stages where it was critical that the Rockets get a score. The lead ballooned to 15 with 3:00 left and the game was over, and with it the series.

Random Stuff:

• Garcia and Perkins had a minor shoving match early on and a few other players were dragged in to a war of words. In the end, the refs assessed things almost exactly even – double technicals and a personal foul on Garcia on the play, but then they immediately called an offensive foul on Perkins before the ball was inbounded. That confrontation set the tone for the rest of the game, which had plenty more incidents to add spice to proceedings. Like people who’ve been living together for too long, it’s clear that after 6 games against each other the two teams are starting to get annoyed with each other. There was a further set of double technicals handed out to Durant and Asik (very out of character for him!) for jawing at each other. Durant kneed Parsons in the unmentionables at one point. As the first half buzzer ended, Parsons stepped in to take a charge on Durant that was seen as a no-call by the referee, and it looked as though Parsons was close to getting T’ed up as well.
• Harden continued to exhibit his mastery of the two-for-one at the end of the first half, pulling up for a three with 34 seconds remaining. The late scoring bursts the Rockets are able to pull off at the end of quarters because of this is really useful – suddenly instead of being down ten they’re down 5, or the lead gets stretched when the game is tight.
• In the third quarter, Harden had a humourous play. He felt Ibaka had been in the lane for more than three seconds, so he started jumping up and down and informing the referees. As soon as Ibaka stepped out of the key, Harden blew by his defender for a layup.

The post Oklahoma City Thunder 103, Houston Rockets 94 – School’s out for Summer appeared first on Red94 | essays and musings on the nba and houston rockets.

The first quarter began with some ominously cold shooting from the Rockets. The Grizzlies were making it hard for them to get the easy shots to which they are accustomed, and when they did Harden and co. struggled to put them in the basket (Harden in particular blew several layups you would normally expect him to make). Memphis weren’t shooting well either, but they were getting on the offensive boards. Randolph was fighting for inside position very hard with Smith, and while for the most part Smith did a good job of keeping him quiet, he eventually did pick up two fouls in doing so and had to sit.  It was a difficult task, but Smith really needed to keep himself on the court. As soon as he went to the bench, the Memphis bigs smelt blood and suddenly all of the possessions were going through Randolph and Gasol. Terrence Jones really couldn’t keep Randolph quiet – he was fortunate that there wasn’t long left in the quarter for him to be tormented.

The second quarter was more of the same offensively. Motiejunas came in and looked unconfident. His form was off and his shots weren’t falling. As well as Smith and Asik have played together in the past few games, it means you have to play D-Mo and Jones together for significant minutes, and when Motiejunas is in a funk it really doesn’t look good. D-Mo didn’t see any more time for the rest of the game, but time is running out to get him back in a groove for playoff time. Harden sat for a few minutes and without him offense was hard to come by. The one bright spot was that despite  never quite looking right when given the ball on offense, Jones was doing a great job on the boards at both ends. His work prevented the gap from ballooning too far at the start of the quarter.

But there’s only so much you can do when you can’t make a shot. The starters came back and it didn’t get much better – over the course of the half the Rockets only made 11 field goals, for a shooting percentage of 29.7%. They made a couple of threes late on to cut the deficit to 13, but frankly that was flattering. Harden was missing layups he would normally make and committing some bad turnovers too – he reached the midpoint with 12 points on 3-11 shooting to go with 4 TOs. When he’s not playing well with the ball in his hands, it’s really tough to justify his poor defense at the other end. It also didn’t help that Asik was having a terrible half. He wasn’t dominating the boards like he normally does and had a bit of foul trouble, but the main issue was that he could not finish around the basket. It is vital the way that the Rockets’ offense is constructed that the team can rely on a big man to finish, and without that the two big lineups look awfully stagnant.

In the third quarter, we saw Harden starting to look for the outside shot a bit more. He was able to get to his spot on the left wing where he is so deadly and knock down a few three pointers, which seemed to stimulate the Rockets’ offense. Lin was also finding some joy by relentlessly driving into the paint. Grizzlies were fouling a lot and also went through a cold streak of their own, and in combination it allowed the team to cut the lead to 5. After playing so poorly in the first half, it was a great achievement to get back into the game.

The Rockets started the fourth on a roll. Terrence Jones continued to play well off the ball. He was cleaning up the boards with aplomb (including one very nice putback jam), and shook off some of his shooting reticence to knock down a three pointer. On the back of his hustle the team was able to bring it back to level at 64 all before we were treated to the rare sight of Harden getting genuinely angry. There had been a couple of calls that hadn’t gone his way, and eventually he was pushed over the edge and earned a technical, having to be held back by Lin and trainer Keith Jones. Interestingly, that anger drove him to actually play some good defense on a few straight possessions. With Harden, I really feel like the only thing stopping him from being at least an average defender is his mindset – when he’s motivated, he’s very capable. It didn’t take long though for that fire to subside and his old habits to take over again.

Perhaps that momentary defensive exertion took it out of him, because as the final quarter wore on Harden started to look tired. It was somewhat understandable because ended up playing the entirety of the second half, but you could see him slowing down possessions when the ball ended up in his hands.  This coincided with the Grizzlies turning up their defense and the refs swallowing their whistles. The fast hands of Allen and Conley generated some fast break points and suddenly the lead had ballooned to 8 points. Fortunately, Jeremy Lin was able to step into the void – a couple of clutch threes and a pretty no-look feed to Asik and they were right back in the game as we entered crunch time.

With 33 seconds left in the game, the Rockets were down 80-78 with possession. Harden received the ball at the top of the arc, but the Grizzlies were able to shut off his driving options. Eventually he put up a three and missed. On the long rebound, the Grizzlies got a run out but some desperate defense by Lin and Jones forced Tony Allen into a tough reverse layup, which he missed. In the ensuing scramble for the rebound Allen was fouled, but proceeded to miss both free throws and suddenly Houston had a chance to take the final shot for a win or tie. Once again, Harden was iso’ed against Allen, and this time he pulled up from just inside the three point line. With tired legs beneath him, he missed the shot and with that the Grizzlies walked out of the building with the win.

Random Observations:

• The Rockets really missed Parsons tonight. With Delfino only just back from a bad bout of flu and Garcia a non-factor, they were really lacking an additional option from the perimeter to space the floor and create secondary penetration off kick outs. Parsons’ skills would have added the third option the team desperately needed against the suffocating Grizzlies defense.
• One interesting wrinkle I noticed was that defensively McHale had Harden defending Prince and Garcia on Allen. This was the opposite to what I expected – I figured with Allen being the least threatening Memphis starter offensively it would make sense to hide Harden there. But if there’s one thing worse than Harden’s man defense, it’s his positioning when he’s the help defender. There were some possessions in the third quarter where Harden was defending Allen, and they did not end well. First Allen crossed Harden over and drove to the basket (where he had a BIG collision with Smith) and then he was able to lose Harden completely to get wide open under the basket. Harden’s defensive inattention is best hidden against players who are not a threat to drive, so I think the right call was made here.
• While I can understand why McHale left Harden in the game for the whole second half (the team looked totally unable to find a shot in the few minutes when he sat in the second quarter), he really does need to find a way to ration the Beard’s minutes a bit. If you’re going to rely on Harden isos to end the game, he needs to have enough gas left in the tank to generate good shots, and it didn’t feel like that was there tonight.
• Terrence Jones needs to learn how and when to pass. At the moment whenever he receives the ball it completely breaks the flow of the offense. He seems to have two modes: either he holds the ball for a split second longer than he needs to before passing back to a guard, or he goes into an expansive dribble move with multiple crossovers that goes nowhere, before eventually either forcing up an awkward shot or passing out again having wasted 10 seconds of the shot clock. One senses that he has yet to completely adjust to the shorter NBA shot-clock and the time pressures it exerts on an offense.
• Greg Smith did a good job when asked to guard Randolph, but for a couple of possessions in the second half he was asked to guard Marc Gasol and got schooled. On the first possession, Smith got into a low stance to prepare for a post up. Gasol took one look at him, stood up straight, and tossed in what amounted to an open 10 footer – Smith was so low that he had nothing in Gasol’s eyeline! On the next possession, Smith tried to body up Gasol, who responded with a quick move to the basket drawing the foul. Smith wasn’t left on Gasol again for the rest of the game. I think this short sequence illustrated one of the issues that’s going to arise when playing Smith at the 4 – while he does a great job against bangers, opposing players with a modicum of finesse can make him look a bit silly. He’s liable to encounter a few more of those when playing the power forward spot than he would have done at centre.
• Looking back, the growth we’ve seen over the course of the season from Jeremy Lin has been amazing. Back in pre-season and in the early games, he looked wild on the drives and couldn’t hit a shot from the outside to save his life. He has gradually tightened things up over the course of the season and now looks like a completely different player. He’s developed an excellent ability to change from a full-on drive to a dead stop in an instant that gets him a lot of short jumpers in the lane (which he has started making), and he no longer looks out of control if he does take it all the way to the hole. The outside shooting has come a long way too – without his late three pointers in tonights game the Rockets would have been nowhere near close enough to create the crunch-time situation, and generally it seems like a much safer option than it used to for him to play the role of set shooter from Harden’s drives.

The post Memphis Grizzlies 82, Houston Rockets 78 – Not long til playoff time appeared first on Red94 | essays and musings on the nba and houston rockets.

The Rockets came cold out of the gate, slipping to a 12-4 deficit on the back of a couple of Nuggets threes. But as has happened in the last few contests, they were able to key off the spark provided by Garcia to get them going. He knocked down a couple of threes on consecutive possessions, and suddenly it was contagious – Terrence Jones and Jeremy Lin both put in one of their own in quick succession to give them the lead, and both Anderson and Motiejunas converted later in the quarter.

The defense also stepped up, at one point forcing two shot clock violations in succession. It seemed as though the Nuggets were missing the outside shooting of Galinari as they tossed up several airballs from around the perimeter. No Ty Lawson probably hurt them too – the Rockets were packing the paint and making penetration difficult, particularly for Andre Miller who isn’t the quickest any more. When Evan Fournier came off the bench he was able to do a bit better.

Terrence Jones was more active tonight after a passive game against Portland.  He looked confident in the first half, knocking down the open three (although his release is painfully slow), and converting a three point play. There was also a very attractive block where he had the presence of mind to direct the ball up the floor, triggering the break. Unfortunately he looks as though he still hasn’t quite adjusted to the speed of the NBA games at times though. There were a couple of offensive possessions where he hesitated upon receiving the ball, destroying the Rockets’ flow. The coaches have obviously told him to be aggressive, and that manifests itself in him trying a lot of expansive and flowing moves, facing up his man or trying something in the post. You can see the quickness and strength is there, but he’s going for too much at the moment and it’s not coming off. In the NBA you want every dribble to have a purpose, but he doesn’t seem to have  absorbed that lesson yet.

Harden was struggling from the field, but making up for it by getting to the free throw line a lot. He’s struggled in the past with Iguodala, but tonight he was taking advantage of the eagerness of Corey Brewer. Every time Harden drove Brewer would go for the steal and inevitably get nothing but arm, making an easy call for the referee. The upshot was that by half time Harden had 12 points despite only making 1 of 6 shots.

In the second quarter it seemed as though the thin air and lack of rest was catching up with the Rockets. They’d done a good job up to that point of limiting the high-flying transition game the Nuggets love to play, but some sloppy turnovers allowed a procession of layups and alley-oops to give the Nuggets back the lead. McHale looked absolutely furious with the team as he was forced to call a timeout – the subject of his ire was probably the previous defensive stand, in which JaVale McGee was able to rise up uncontested for an easy dunk. But despite looking a little more alive after the timeout, they were unable to completely stop the bleeding. They ended up giving up 39 points in the quarter to be down 8 at half time.

The third quarter felt like more of the same. The Nuggets seemed to have more energy, flying all over the court, while the Rockets were starting to make a few silly mistakes. Harden looked low on energy. At one point he thought he had been fouled in the far corner and just…stopped. The Nuggets stole the ball and went the other way, easily converting the ensuing 5-on-4 as Harden jogged back up the court. By this point it shouldn’t be surprising to see Harden putting in less effort than he should be on defense, but this felt particularly egregious. He missed a couple of threes short as well, which tends to be a sign of fatigue, and McHale pulled him out shortly thereafter. He did not see the court again for the rest of the game.

The lone bright spot in the third quarter for the Rockets was Jeremy Lin. He was making a lot of tough shots around the basket (including his first 6 of the game) and doing a great job on the distribution side of things too.  The driving game was working really well – at this stage of life Andre Miller doesn’t really have the necessary footspeed to stay in front of players like Lin. Apart from one possession where he clanked two corner threes (Terrence Jones with the offensive rebound), I don’t really remember him putting a foot wrong. He ended up with a pleasing 23 points (on 8-15 shooting) to go with 8 assists.

When the dust had settled at the end of the third quarter, the scoreboard did not make for pretty reading. The Nuggets had put up 38 points en route to a 19 point lead, and there was no coming back. The Rockets opened the quarter with Lin/Beverley/Anderson/Jones/Robinson, but quickly subbed in Brooks as McHale threw in the towel. There were about 9 minutes of garbage time as the teams played out the string. It’s probably fair to assign some of the blame to the circumstances as the Rockets looked dead-on-the-court for most of the second half, but some credit must be given to the Nuggets too. They were explosive on the break and clinical at making the most of the Rockets’ fatigue. Even without some of their better players, they’re still very much alive in the third spot, and on the evidence of tonight and the previous games in the season series they are not a team the Rockets match up with very well. If Houston can make it to the number 6 spot for the playoffs, I maintain that they are the team the Rockets would least like to play.

Random Observations:

• Since Smith has joined the starting lineup, the Rockets have liked to go to him for the first possession of the game in the post. This game they continued to feature him on the low block on several further possessions in the early going. He didn’t have much success with it, going 0-3 to start the game (though he did have a bit more joy in the second half, making a hook shot and drawing a foul). While it works as a change of pace, I’m not sure that Smith quite has the back-to-the-basket game to be able to do it consistently unless he’s got a smaller opponent on him. Playing him at the four seems to reduce his opportunities for easy finishes slightly, but the team should probably be looking to set those up over some low percentage post ups.
• MEGA-DUNK! James Anderson absolutely posterised Evan Fournier for a dunk on the break that came from a Jones block in the first quarter. Didn’t realize he had such springs. I’m sure it will make some top play lists, so make sure you check it out. There were plenty of other highlights to be had from the Nuggets alley-oop factory too.
• I continue to be very impressed by Lin’s post defense – Miller took him down to the post a few times tonight and he handled it exceptionally well. It’s been a recurring theme with him – I remember Chris Paul trying to post him up a few games ago and getting nowhere either. He may struggle to keep quick guards in front of him at times, but if they’ve got their back to him you can count on him to do a decent job.
• At one point in the third quarter Asik tried to flop on a move in the post by Andre Miller. It was comedic to see the big man hit the deck on a bump by such a small player. Obviously he didn’t get the call.
• Really liked the look of Evan Fournier, who was playing backup point guard for the Nuggets tonight. He can hit the outside shot, he can penetrate, and he looks great in the open court too – there was one pretty fast break where he dropped a behind the back pass to a streaking Anthony Randolph.
• Stat-line of the night has to go to Andre Iguodala, who finished three rebounds shy of a triple double. He had 18 points, 14 assists and 7 rebounds and generally was at the heart of everything the Nuggets did. When analyzing the Dwight Howard trade in the summer, it seems as though the Nuggets can put up a good case for having come out best. They’ve done really well this season and Iguodala has been a big part of that.

The post Denver Nuggets 132, Houston Rockets 114 – Sometimes the schedule knows best appeared first on Red94 | essays and musings on the nba and houston rockets.

James Harden was a beast. He shot 7-10 from deep, grabbed 5 boards and dished  8 dimes. His 8 turnovers were grim indeed, but that wasn’t even half of the team’s total (19). As the game progressed and the win slipped farther out of Houston’s reach, Harden turned it on in the third and took over. The Rockets had been trying to create for a variety of scorers, to move the ball and to play as a team. That wasn’t working at all. When they simply gave the ball to Harden and let him break down his man, the Rockets scored. With fatigue aplenty to go around, perhaps there simply wasn’t enough in his tank to shoot more often. It’s too bad, because he was packing high octane in the tank.

Carlos Delfino was the only other Rocket making any headway against the Suns, turning in 21 points on 8-15 shooting. The rest of Houston’s had 9 points 25% shooting. The Suns’ bench, on the other hand, had 55 points on 44 shots. Jared Dudley led his team with 22 points on 75% from the field. Hamed Haddadi played solid defense and looked clearly better than Omer Asik. Kendall Marshall his huge, critical threes as well as a last second heave of a two that somehow found its way home. The Suns played their bench huge minutes, and those players simply looked fresher and more excited than anyone in red.

The difference in effort was striking. While a few 50/50′s went the Suns’ way, the fact of the matter is that the Suns’ bench unit simply beat the Rockets’ starters. Parsons had 14 points on 16 shots and Lin scored 11 on 9. The Rockets went 4-6 on free throws outside of Harden’s 9-12. Omer Asik grabbed 16 rebounds, but nobody else in red had more than 5. Patrick Beverley’s 5 assists beat out Lin’s 4 and the starters had 17 turnovers.

For a 2:45 stretch in the second, the Rockets went scoreless with 3 turnovers and 2 shot attempts. The Rockets’ offense has looked weak in recent games, and the ability to defense Golden State was crucial in their win on Friday. The Suns simply proved too much to handle as they scrambled and hustled to boost their chances. Discounting the four intentional fouls by Houston late in the game, both teams committed 20 fouls on the evening. The Suns, however, were much more aggressive with the ball, resulting in the Suns shooting 31 free throws to the Rockets’ 18. The Rockets shot over twice as many threes, and that’s not a recipe for shooting fouls.

There’s little good for Houston to take away from this game, save for perhaps a sense of urgency against the Suns on Wednesday, Houston’s next game. The Suns looked like a better team, winning despite starting center Marcin Gortat sitting with an injury. At the start of the year, these two teams were predicted to be between 30 to 40 wins, with the Suns being a bit better. The season so far has told a different story, but this alternate reality came true for a game tonight.

The post Phoenix Suns 107, Houston Rockets 105: Harden Can’t Do It All appeared first on Red94 | essays and musings on the nba and houston rockets.

In similar fashion to the game against Milwaukee, Houston came out firing on all cylinders. They were draining threes and getting to the rim at will for layups, either out of the pick-and-roll or by getting the ball in to Asik after sucking away help defenders. Once again though they were dragged back to level pegging due to a combination of defensive malaise and superior execution from the opposition.  This time the blame can’t be placed solely on the bench though, as the slide began before Asik checked out of the game. It was more to do with the excellence of Tobias Harris than anything else (more on that later).

The trends we saw in the first game with regards to the new power forward tandem would continue tonight. Motiejunas looks more and more comfortable as every game goes by. You can see he’s starting to play a bit more under control – gone are the wild flailings that occasionally accompanied his garbage time minutes in the first half of the season, and in their place has come a steadier and much more promising player. He’s still doing a great job of drifting out to the three point line – I’m very comfortable letting him shoot the corner three much in the same way Patterson did. Would prefer him to avoid taking above-the-break ones though, as he has a much poorer conversion rate on those – just 1/6 coming into the game and that was not improved by the two he took in the first half. He popped up in the right place at the right time to finish a couple of plays at the basket, and in the second half displayed a couple of dazzling post moves. What was a little disappointing was his defense. The Magic commentators picked up on his deficiencies, and rightly so – Andrew Nicholson caught him flat-footed multiple times during the game and he also got blown by a couple of times on drives from the perimeter. He wasn’t helped by strategy he adopted on pick-and-rolls – he spent most of his time hedging very strongly, and it didn’t take long for the Magic to catch on. Nicholson began rolling hard to the hoop and was rewarded with a couple of easy buckets. He needs to improve his defensive stance, which at the moment is far too upright. If he can get a bit lower and onto the balls of his feet, he should avoid some of the more egregious defensive lapses in the future. 17 points on on 7-12 shooting is a nice stat-line, but he was not able to get on the boards tonight all that much (3 rebounds) and the passing that set mouths salivating in the Bucks game was absent.

Robinson looked a little better tonight at the beginning, but still did not have a particularly good time. He was comprehensively outplayed by his opposite number Tobias Harris, unable to contain his quicker opponent, and also struggled to establish himself on the boards – an area of concern given that is supposed to be his strength. He got time in the second quarter at power forward, but then late in the third McHale tried to experiment with playing him at centre as part of an ultra-small lineup for a couple of possessions: Lin, Harden, Parsons, Delfino, Robinson. It didn’t go very well, though that was more because Tobias Harris (that name again!) was abusing Delfino in a mismatch than because of anything Robinson was doing. He tried posting up veteran Al Harrington at one point, but as soon as he turned to face him up Harrington just grabbed the ball away from him – it didn’t look particularly good. Later on he also dribbled the ball straight into the hands of a Magic player – it was not pretty.

To start the game, Harden looked as though he was feeling the effects of the ankle injury he sustained last night, but he did seem to warm up as the game wore on. He doesn’t put in great effort on the defensive end at the best of times, but he was noticeably trailing behind Afflalo for much of the game. He made up for it by intelligently harassing Afflalo by going for steals from behind – it seemed to unsettle his man and got him out of his rhythm a bit, so the net result wasn’t as bad as it could have been. In the third quarter he started to reassert himself with a few isolation plays – normally I am very much against that sort of thing, but it felt like they got his juices flowing and reawakened him after a slow first half (4 points on 1-5 shooting). Perhaps because his driving game didn’t feel so comfortable, he instead was looking to get to the elbow and shooting jump shots – it felt uncharacteristic for him, but he was swishing them all. It’s obviously an area that he’s worked on a lot even if he doesn’t tend to use it all that much. He finished with a quiet 22 points on 7-18 shooting – not a great night by his standards. But it’s nights like these, more so than the games where he explodes, that hammer home his brilliance – even when he’s not playing well, he can still casually toss in 22 points and lead the team in scoring. Such a luxury to have him on the team.

The third quarter overall was disappointing – some half time adjustments by the Magic meant the Rockets were unable to generate the three point looks their accustomed to and as a result the offense bogged down a bit. The midrange and the post up are generally the two least efficient play types available, but in very uncharacteristic fashion they seemed to be what the Rockets were settling for. The defence was leaving a lot to be desired, allowing Orlando to hang around – the Magic took a one point lead into the final frame.

What seemed to galvanize the team was the play of Beverley. I know a lot of people are gushing over Motiejunas at the moment, but Beverley has very quickly grown into my favourite Rocket to watch since he started getting playing time. Whether it was picking up the opposing point guard full court, diving in for steals and deflections, sinking his threes or making some pretty runners in the lane, you could count on him to put in maximum effort on the court. The degree of hustle he brings can’t help but drag the rest of the team along with him. He was the engine room behind an 11-0 run that blew the game open in the fourth quarter as he and Harden were able to generate some steals and get out on the break. His was doing so well that McHale decided to leave him on the floor down the stretch over Lin, and despite a late Rockets wobble that allowed the Magic to get within 5, the Rockets were able to hold on for the victory.

This win was far from impressive – the defense was full of holes and they allowed a team who haven’t had a lot of close games recently (and only 2 of the last 20 have been wins). But given the last two games, winning the game was far more important than style points. When the Magic threatened to make a comeback late the Rockets were able to hold them off and prevent the game from getting close – they will need to learn from that and try to apply the same concepts to the tougher teams they’ll face down the road.

Before tonight, the Magic were one of only two teams remaining in the league the Rockets have yet to play (the other is Phoenix, which is absurd because they still have to play each other four times). Combine that with a lack of coverage from mainstream media, and I realised that I’ve barely seen Orlando play all year. There were plenty of observations then to be made about this team.

•  First of all, let me just say that the Orlando announcers are some of the best and most intelligent-sounding announcers I’ve had the pleasure of listening to call a game so far this season (along with Ian Eagle and the Brooklyn crew). They’re not only knowledgeable about their own team, but had done plenty of preparation on the visitors and actually spent a fair amount of time discussing the Rockets’ situation. This was a breath of fresh air after all of the extreme homers you find elsewhere on the League Pass dial (including, I’m sorry to say, our own broadcasting crew). They showed a willingness to refer to non-traditional statistics (like Corner 3% out from overall 3pt%, for example), and didn’t show too much bias when evaluating the referees calls – while they did take the Magic’s side on them most of the time, I usually felt like they had a legitimate point.  They also didn’t make any obvious factual errors (or at least not any that I noticed), which was very refreshing (I’m looking at you, Bill Worrell). They were willing to rag on the Houston defense a little, but that was justified given how the team were playing. Can’t say enough good stuff about these guys.
• The Magic’s cohort of young big men look like they’re going to be excellent in the near future. Vucevic gave Asik a tough battle on the boards (although overall I thought Asik just shaved it), and both he and his starting frontcourt-mate Andrew Nicholson had good games, showing touch not just from around the rim but also from out to around the elbows and the 15-18 foot range. The real surprise though was Tobias Harris. He was playing PF, but looked like more of a tweener given his extreme mobility. He came out blazing hot, quickly putting up 13 points on 6-8 shooting in his first half stint, and just kept on going en route to a 24 point 10 rebound night. He had the outside shot going and also looked very capable at getting into the paint on the drive. Looked good on the post-up too when he got the chance against the smaller Delfino in the third. On this viewing he appeared to have the complete package offensively, and I didn’t notice any glaring defensive errors either. It’s strange how great he’s looking given how little playing time he got in Milwaukee – the perils of getting in Scott Skiles’ doghouse, I suppose. But if he can continue in this form, he’s going to be an amazing player in not all that long. Definitely someone to keep an eye on.
• Where the Magic looked lacking was in the backcourt – Jameer Nelson was out tonight, so E’twaun Moore (who was actually released by Houston during the offseason as they tried to sift through the mass of fringe players they received in trades) got the start. He looked like a reasonable game manager but didn’t really produce much offensively. Beno Udrih was a bit more lively when he came into the game, sparking a few fast breaks. Afflalo, the player who at the time was considered to be the centrepiece of the Dwight Howard summer blockbuster trade, was pretty quiet tonight. he was able to get some separation from Harden, particularly in the first half, but was unable to translate that into points very well. One guy who did look good was small forward Maurice Harkless. He reminds me a bit of Parsons from last season – decent stroke from the outside (3/4 on threes) and looked to be a competent defender for the most part. He did get embarrassed at one point when he celebrated making a three on his way back down the court while Parsons leaked out for an easy layup attempt, but other than that was very solid. As a whole, the Magic seemed to be content to let their big guys do all the heavy lifting, and while they did a great job tonight, I think down the stretch they could have done with a steadier hand on the ball to get them into their offense and break free of Beverley’s pestering coverage.
• On the whole, I can understand why they’ve lost a lot of games this year (the team they put out on the floor was pretty raw), but their cadre of young players all look very promising. These guys are going to be good in a few years time – their post-Dwight rebuilding phase seems to have gone impeccably if tonight’s game is any evidence.

Finally, I leave you with a nice quote from Harden in the post game interview:

Interviewer: [paraphrased] “What will be the areas of focus for the Rockets down the stretch?”

Harden: “Our consistency and our attention to detail. You know, we’re a young team but we’ve got to focus on the small things, and I think that’s going to get us over the hump.”

I couldn’t agree more. Despite some lapses tonight, the Rockets got the win. The question is, can they fix up the little issues well enough to stay afloat in the Western Conference Playoff Race? For that, you’ll just have to tune in next time.

The post Houston Rockets 118, Orlando Magic 110 – They all count, but more attention to detail please. appeared first on Red94 | essays and musings on the nba and houston rockets.

At the start of the first quarter, it seemed as though the Rockets had taken the advice to heart. A combination of Lin being pesky in the passing lanes (two early steals) and some good defensive possessions from Patterson meant that it took 3:41 for the Bobcats to register their first field goal. When the lead stretched to 16-4 after back-to-back three pointers from Parsons, the Rockets had made things look so easy that it felt inevitable they would streak off into the distance and leave Charlotte in the dust. Things didn’t continue that way though. On the offensive end, the presence of Biyombo seemed to blunt Lin’s drives somewhat, and the resulting kick-outs didn’t quite give the open looks you’d like. At the other end, Sessions and Walker were able to dial up their driving game to cause some threat. The net result was that they were able to bring the game back to within 5 at the end of the quarter.

There was an interesting development as the subs started to filter into the game – for tonight at least, Cole Aldrich appeared to have taken Greg Smith’s spot in the rotation. I’m unaware of any injuries to Smith, so perhaps McHale was taking the opportunity of weaker opposition to reassess Aldrich. Smith hasn’t been as effective in recent weeks, perhaps causing his grip on the backup C position to weaken slightly. Aldrich was able to find some openings out of the pick-and-roll for some easy buckets. The rotations from Charlotte were nothing to write home about and once the Rockets became attuned to this they were able to repeatedly hit the big man (Aldrich initially, and later Asik once he checked back in) for easy looks. Defensively though, Aldrich was unable to replicate Asik’s defensive dependability and was frequently late or out of position to help when Charlotte drove at the rim.

During the second quarter, the Bobcats continued to hang around. In general they did not look especially potent in the half-court, but they would run whenever they could and were able to cash in on a substantial number of transition opportunities. Earlier in the season the Rockets’ transition defense was a point of concern, and it’s still looking very permissive. As the quarter drew on though, the lead started to stretch because the Rockets were also off and running. They won the half 19-15 on fast-break points, and the real scoreboard was also firmly in their favour at 62-51.

The two standout performers overall in the half was Parsons, who racked up 19 points by halftime. He got them in a nice mix – there were the three pointers, there were some drives to the rim, and some easy buckets on the break. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention his tip jam (first we’ve seen from him in a long while) off an Asik free throw miss. He came flying in from the three point line in a fashion reminiscent of the current Bobcat’s owner, it was very impressive.

The third quarter started out promisingly enough. The lead was teased out to 15 points as James Harden shook off a quiet (by his standards) first half with 7 quick points. But all of a sudden the Rockets started settling too much for the jumper and missing. Hesitation started creeping into the game – players were passing up open shots ending up with worse ones. Asik went to the bench, and in his place Aldrich could not provide either the same solidity on the defensive end or the same persistence on the offensive glass. Jeff Taylor was instrumental in closing the gap, ending the quarter with perfect 6-6 shooting numbers. The ground between the two teams was being eaten up before your eyes on the court, and when the dust had settled at the end of the quarter the lead was just 2.

So, after a puke-worthy end to the third quarter (true story actually – I’m suffering from a bad cough at the moment and genuinely did have to go and sit with my head over the toilet bowl for a few minutes between quarters), the fourth quarter started with one of the scariest things you’ll see on a basketball court – a player passed out unconscious. Michael Kidd Gilchrist was contesting a Toney Douglas layup attempt on the break, and in absorbing the contact was thrown backwards into an onrushing Jeff Taylor. He caught what appeared to be a hip to the back of the head and collapsed in a heap under the basket, where he lay for quite some time. After a long stoppage he was stretchered off – hopefully he is alright. The Rockets broadcast didn’t give any updates on his condition.

Once play continued, momentum continued to swing towards the Bobcats. Ben Gordon is always a threat to suddenly get hot, and he nailed back-to-back three pointers to suddenly open up a 5 point lead. The spectre of the jump-pass had returned, with Lin committing a couple of turnovers by looking for the kick-out too late to be able to do anything else. You could see the Bobcats picking up more and more confidence with every possession. Jumpers were hitting nothing but net and their rotations looked a lot sharper on the defensive end. If the Rockets were going to turn it around, they needed someone to start stepping up.

As it turned out, that person was Patrick Patterson. Coach Dunlap decided to put a small lineup on the floor – four shooters spacing the floor around Biyombo. Smallball has become the trendy tactic recently, but what ensued was a triumph for traditional lineups. Patterson started out with a couple of important three pointers that ensured his man had to pay attention to him, then took advantage of his smaller defender (6’7″ Taylor had the duty) to get free inside. Add in some energetic running on the break, and you end up with a grand total of 14 fourth quarter points for him, enough to break the Bobcats’ resistance and lead the Rockets to a relieving 14 point victory.

A few more thoughts in bullet point form:

• James Harden put the icing on the cake once the pendulum had swung back to the Rockets for the last time by recording his first career triple double. There was no point in the proceedings when he could have been said to have been dominating, but he did an excellent job in the pick and roll all night. There were a lot of very nice feeds to the big men that show up in his assist totals, and he was able to get to 21 points on only 11 shots, once again displaying his customary efficiency.
• One of the storylines coming into the game tonight was whether Jeremy Lin would be able to better his performance in the matchup between these two teams, when he was comprehensively outplayed by Kemba Walker.  Lin had hands in the passing lanes all night to end up with three steals, and a couple of very nice individual plays against Walker. On one possession he completely fooled Walker with a crossover (there was a very audible expletive from Kemba as Lin slid past him), but unfortunately the end product wasn’t there so it probably won’t make the highlight reels. In the second half, Jeremy appeared to have been beaten on a back door cut to the basket only to somehow recover and deny the shot at the rim. The downside to what appeared to be some extra effort was that he got back into the bad habit of the jump-pass, as I mentioned earlier. Biyombo can be a pretty imposing figure to drive into the lane against, but in previous games when confronted with that situation Lin would have kept his dribble alive and continued to probe for an opening.
• Overall, I would grade the Aldrich experiment as a failure. He had a couple of decent finishes in the pick-and-roll, but those are Smith’s bread and butter anyway. Apart from that there were few positives to be gleaned. He looked weak defensively (there’s a good reason why the team was +26 when Asik was on the floor but -12 when Aldrich was) and wasn’t able to attack the offensive glass anywhere near as well as Asik or Smith does. I’d prefer to keep Smith in the backup centre position for now.
• Jeff Adrien was one of the Rockets’ D-League callups last season. In the limited minutes we got to see him for, I felt as though he was lacking the athleticism that he would need to succeed at the NBA level given his lack of size. Patrick Patterson definitely won the battle of the PFs tonight, but it’s good to see the guy get a longer shot at playing his way into a long term NBA role.
• Delfino played only 7 minutes tonight before leaving with a strained elbow. According to Feigen this is an issue that has been around for a while, but flared up especially badly tonight. It remains to be seen whether he’ll have recovered for the first tilt of the year against the Warriors on Tuesday.

The post Houston Rockets 109, Charlotte Bobcats 95 – Rockets made to work hard for their win appeared first on Red94 | essays and musings on the nba and houston rockets.

The Rockets began the game sluggish, getting out to their usual first quarter deficit. This time, however, the opposing team trailed at the end of the first, and the Rockets looked ready to buck the trend of losing the first and winning the game. The 22 point quarter for the Rockets portended something else: they went on to score only 14 in the second, and 10 in the fourth quarters. Despite leading by 10 after a strong third quarter (33 to 25, Rockets’ favor), Houston made only four field goals in the fourth, including one by Lin in the waning seconds of the game, after all chances of recovery had faded.

After a long string of high-performance shooting nights, the Rockets barely managed 40% shooting from the floor against the Hornets, and a poor 33% from deep. As fatigue levels increased, all the Rockets clearly lost energy and accuracy, leading to the two most dismal scoring quarters in their season, both in the same game. Hornets head coach Monty Williams and his defensive schemes must be credited with a large portion of this performance as well. Hornets players rotated well and cut off open lanes to the basket while remaining active on closing out. This Hornets team hot off a win against the Spurs looked confident and composed on the defensive end, and the Rockets were unable to mount a sufficient offense.

The Rockets’ brutal January schedule has been ramping up the difficulty, and this second back to back in a row is merely the second of five, a difficult slate of games stretching from January 4th to January 19th. The Rockets use a style of play that runs other teams out of games and obviates even the best of defenses on their path to 120 point games. However, this style of run and run offense seems to require a level of energy that is simply unsustainable on weeks were the Rockets play four or five games in a single week. Whether fast pace can operate in the playoffs is a question less immediately important than if it can work in January. Williams and the Hornets’ solid defense can’t be underestimated, but the Rockets simply looked gassed. As the game wound down, open threes clanged off the rim and even James Harden, finisher extraordinaire was missing the hoop on layups. The Hornets have been successful at slowing the Rockets to their pace, and in this game it was all too easy to get a trudging Houston team to play half court offense.

Harden notched his 25th point with 15 seconds left in the game on a free throw. Whether a 25 point game streak is important or not, he kept the streak alive. In what was a bad night for him, he only hit half his field goals (9-18) and only got to the line for 6 free throws. He picked up 3 rebounds and 4 assists, but gave the ball away a game-high 7 times. In fact, the Rockets overall had a particularly sloppy and turnover prone game, recording 23 as a team.

Only Omer Asik (8 pts, 4-6 shooting, 8 rebounds) and Toney Douglas (7 pts, 2-4 shooting) managed to match or exceed the 50% mark from the field. Asik had a quiet, decent game, and Douglas continued to settle into his new score-first role. In a bizarre contrast to the beginning of the season, Douglas now serves as a calming influence off the bench. Toney is happy to shoot the ball, and his decent handle gives his cuts and weaves a better chance at success. Instead of leading the bench toward a mountain of turnovers, he now tends to lead rallies.

With the exception of Patterson grabbing a very solid 10 rebounds, Parsons grabbing 8, and Lin hawking his way to a remarkable 5 steals, the rest of the team simply looked beat down and bad. Morris shot 2-3 from deep, but then spoiled that glimmer with four missed shots from inside the arc, including close looks that he should be hitting. Parsons and Delfino combined for 4-13 from deep, clanging shot after shot, many of them quite open. Greg Smith once again only played a few minutes (5:46) in a troubling trend for him and the team. Perhaps his defense hasn’t satisfied the exacting Kevin McHale, but his offense has been so solid that it seems a loss for him to sit on the bench so much.

The silver lining on this gray cloud of a game is that the problems presented look mostly solvable and temporary, not systemic. The Rockets have been scoring at a heroic clip, and one 79 point game is more likely an anomaly than a new trend. The offense was able to manufacture decent looks, they simply couldn’t hit any of them. Fatigue played a role in this game, and that can be adjusted for. In the long term, there are some positives to losing when your legs simply don’t work and some negatives to winning when Roger Mason Jr turns in 17 point, 6-7 performance. The bigger issues of finding bench minutes to alleviate the strain on the starters and managing back to back games are something the Rockets will have to figure out. As long as they can weather a rough January and make it into the playoffs, those regular season questions will hopefully fade away as more important playoff questions loom. For the next three weeks, however, they may have to answer one question most of all: how do you win ugly games?

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