Players say pieces never fit together
The repairs were always temporary fixes, not strong enough to hold up under pressure. The Rockets were a broken team, as interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff described them heading into the All-Star break. The repairs made along the way were as if held together by duct tape in a rainstorm, sure to come apart when tested.
The Rockets were never strong enough to withstand all that the historically great team they doomed themselves to face in the playoffs’ first round could throw at them. So they crumbled once more, losing three times to Golden State by at least 26
points, the final failure 11481 on Wednesday demonstrating one last time how fragile they had become.
Whether poorly constructed from the start or undone by dysfunction, the Rockets ended the season as if beginning the demolition process before a massive rebuild.
“This season from the beginning was just, it wasn’t going our way, just had too many distractions,” Rockets guard James Harden said. “It’s just been a bumpy road this entire season.”
From the start, the Rockets never showed enough belief in one another to handle adversity. They spoke in the season’s final days of the Warriors’ ability to put together sudden, demoralizing runs on waves of 3-pointers. But the Rockets came apart in each of the season’s first three games, losing each by 20 points.
No tight-knit bond
They rolled over in the final games before Kevin McHale was fired as coach with the front office determining the team was “not responding.” But 11 games into a season, that seemed to say more about the team than its coach. Few roster changes ever came, with the eventual small moves like slapping a Band-Aid on a head wound.
“Give J.B. a lot of credit,” guard Jason Terry. “He did what he could do. But we just didn’t have the chemistry. It’s one thing to put the pieces together on paper, but there has to be a tightknit bond with a group of guys to do something special. We just didn’t have that this year.
“You’re going to be faced with all different types of adversities. How you come through those is a sign of what kind of team you have. Our team was just not strong enough mentally to get through those adversities.”
Harden and Dwight Howard, the oil-and-water stars, could tolerate one another on the court, but they could not mesh to the point that one of the NBA’s elite pick-and-roll guards and top pick-and-roll centers rarely executed in pick-and-roll together. Though there were many emotional meetings, with and without coaches, finger pointing was rampant.
“They have a contrast of styles,” Terry said. “I think those two have to be put in a system where they have to learn to play together. I just think they’re two different styles. They just couldn’t coexist to have success this year. It worked last year. This year was different for some reason.
“Chemistry was a big issue for us all year long. We just didn’t have it.”
The Rockets kept the bulk of last season’s 56-win team together and brought back the one significant player, Josh Smith, that had left. But just as last season’s success led to few changes, this season’s failures are expected to inspire an overhaul.
“Can never predict the future,” point guard Pat Beverley said. “I’m not in control of that. I’m pretty sure the necessary additions or whatever will be made this summer.”
Long search or quick?
The Rockets will begin with a search for a longterm successor to McHale. Bickerstaff is expected to be considered, but he will have a difficult time climbing from this season’s wreckage to make a case he could bring the changes he could not as interim coach.
Former Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy will be considered a starting point, though it was premature to say there was a frontrunner before Rockets owner Leslie Alexander weighs in with his front office, a process that was put on hold until the Golden State series was complete. Warriors assistant Luke Walton is expected to be interviewed quickly, given the small window between the end of the first round and the start of the Western Conference semifinals.
The Rockets are mulling whether to launch a long, exhaustive process, as they did when choosing McHale to succeed Rick Adelman, or a quick, targeted search as when Adelman was hired.
Howard is considered more certain than ever to pass on his chance to opt in to another year on his contract. The Rockets had not ruled out trying to bring him back and Howard would not comment about his upcoming decisions.
If he leaves, as seems most likely, he will not be the only one.
That was clear before Wednesday’s finale, but when Bickerstaff was asked about what was needed, he seemed to offer insight about where things had gone wrong as well as where they’ll have to go from here.
“There is going to be change,” he said. “But I think what the team needs to do is … find a way to enjoy the common goals. That’s the important thing. When you watch teams that win, there is an enthusiasm. There is a togetherness. There is a bond there where the winning is the only thing that matters. That’s where you have to start. You start with that foundation and then build on that.”
With the demolition complete, the rebuild can begin.