Coach mulling how best to rebound following back-to-backs

The Rockets are 7-0 in the second half of back-tobacks. But for the second time when playing the game following a back-toback and travel day, coach Mike D’Antoni thought his team was not sharp and misfired, leading to a Western Conference loss.

The Rockets bounced back from the previous road loss, against the Jazz in Salt Lake City, with a 10-game winning streak. They had won five straight road games since that loss before losing 115-109 in Memphis on Friday.

D’Antoni already was thinking about how the Rockets come out of backto-backs with two more this month and another in the first week of January.

“For us, this is the second time (losing) with three games in four nights,” D’Antoni said. “You come off a back-toback, have a day off and play this game. We got it in Utah and we got it here where legs and mind were not there. This has happened before, and we’ll talk about it, trying to do better.”

The Rockets host the Phoenix Suns on Monday and visit the Dallas Mavericks the next night.

Anderson takes to new role

When Clint Capela was ruled out for a minimum of four weeks, Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said in addition to Montrezl Harrell and Nene playing at center, he would work in power forward Ryan Anderson, in part from keeping Nene from having to play too many minutes.

He took that a step further against the Grizzlies, assigning Anderson to defend Memphis center Marc Gasol with Harrell on JaMychal Green. Nene came off the bench to defend Zach Randolph.

The Rockets sent double-team help in the low blocks, but for most of the game Anderson defended Gasol alone, holding him to 5-of-14 shooting and 16 points.

“I thought it was great,” D’Antoni said of Anderson’s defense. “He battled as hard as you can battle on both ends of the floor.”

Anderson amassed a season-high 31 points, making 8-of-14 3-pointers. James Harden matched his career high of 17 assists, with Anderson often rolling off screens when the Grizzles switched and moving out to the 3-point line when the Memphis centers were on him but hesitant to leave the lane.

“There were certain moments James and I tried to figure out how to take advantage (of) their bigs coming out and guarding me,” Anderson said. “Changing the angle on screens was really difficult for them. That was just in the flow of our offense.

“James and I knew it was working, going into pick-and-rolls or pick-andpops. We ‘re just trying to change angles, make it hard on the defense.”