Gone with a whimper
33-point rout a fitting end to sour season
OAKLAND, Calif. — A Rockets season awash in stunning mediocrity and disappointment ended the only way it could. But now, after six months of evidence displaying a broken team and a wasted season, there was nothing surprising about one last blowout loss.
With a remarkably complete exhibition of everything that had gone so wrong from opening night, the Rockets went meekly into the offseason with a display stuffed full of the usual missed shots, turnovers and lethargic defense.
It was fitting, however, that the champion Golden State Warriors showed one more time the antithesis of the Rockets’ dysfunction and disharmony. The Warriors romped again, sending the Rockets off with a 114-81 blowout to finish the Rockets in five games as they did a year ago.
With Wednesday’s seriesending loss, the Rockets have advanced past the first round just once — last season — in 19 years. Just as last season’s success inspired the Rockets to
keep the team together, the final crash is expected to seal the determination to begin a house cleaning around James Harden.
Three seasons after Dwight Howard chose to join the Rockets and inspired championship fantasies, he seemed certain to head to free agency with little reason to return with those soaring hopes long since grounded.
The first half in Game 5 was more than enough to begin the countdown to the offseason.
Harden had 25 points in the first half, making 8 of his 12 shots. The rest of the Rockets went 5-of-34 for 12 points, going 0-for-11 from the 3-point line with six turnovers as the Warriors happily stomped them.
Even with the Warriors playing without reigning and presumptive MVP Stephen Curry for all but the first half of Games 1 and 4, the Warriors had far more firepower than the Rockets could handle.
Even without the league’s leading scorer, the Warriors’ starting guards, Klay Thompson and Shaun Livingston, combined to make 17 of 22 shots. Thompson scored 27 points in 27 minutes. Livingston, Curry’s replacement in the starting lineup, made seven of eight shots to score 16 points. Draymond Green did whatever he pleased, getting 15 points, nine rebounds and eight assists in 31 minutes, throwing up muscle arms to punctuate his more sensational finishes.
The Rockets mostly missed shots, chased rebounds and fouled a lot.
Pat Beverley and Trevor Ariza were a combined 2-of-13, missing all 10 3-pointers. Jason Terry, who guaranteed a win, took eight shots and missed them all.
Harden had 35 points with six rebounds and six assists, but he also had seven turnovers. Howard had 21 rebounds, but made just 3 of 13 shots.
The Rockets also mixed in their usual shortcomings, giving up on plays defensively, failing to get on loose balls and hacking shooters to give the Warriors free throws they did not need.
The Rockets were so thoroughly outplayed, coach J.B. Bickerstaff had to start calling timeouts in the second minute of the game. The Warriors scored so easily and led so quickly by as much as 19 points in the first quarter — the Rockets could have started signing each other’s yearbooks before the second quarter began.
Though the Rockets were never any sort of threat, they did sneak in to within 16 points three minutes into the second half in what amounted to their best stretch.
The next four minutes were typical of the night. In between Thompson 3-pointers, the Rockets missed six shots (five from beyond the arc and a Beverley drive that Andrew Bogut swatted away) and a pair of free throws. After a Livingston jumper, Harden finally scored before Green finished a threepoint play and Thompson put in another trey, giving the Warriors’ a 31-point lead and a 17-2 run in 3½ minutes.
That assured another stomping, but that had seemed certain from the opening tip. It might have been assured from when the Rockets barely slipped into the playoff, their failed season having gone wrong from the start.