It’s a pleasure to watch team play at its best
SAN ANTONIO — Rust? All those golden championship banners?
Gregg Popovich, Kawhi Leonard and the Spurs’ endless legacy? Yeah, whatever. The Mike D’Antoni Show torched San Antonio during Game 1. NBA Jam style. Among the Rockets’ initial 37 field-goal attempts, an astounding 23 were 3-pointers.
They made 11 of those, led by 30 points in a scorching first half and never, ever looked back.
The Spurs: Old and slow, again.
D’Antoni’s Rockets: 12699 winners Monday night at a shellshocked AT&T Center, proud owners of a 1-0 Western Conference semifinals best-of-seven series lead.
“You have to play like a champion. I thought we did,” said D’Antoni, who hadn’t been in the second round in a decade. “One day. We’ve got to repeat this three more times.”
Keep repeating Game 1, and this supposedly super-tight series will be a red sweep.
San Antonio didn’t care to fight until the end of the third quarter, when Dewayne Dedmon came off the bench to talk trash while his team was down by 29 points.
Nene ended up being ejected — and got to celebrate a quarter early.
The coach and team known for constant brilliant adjustments never had an answer.
The coach doubted the second he was hired, and a team still requiring national respect, were often perfect Monday night and sometimes simply unguardable.
Five off days and a work week devoted to rest were apparently exactly what the D’Antoni Show needed.
After beating Russell Westbrook’s Thunder 4-1 in the first round — despite only shooting 28.4 percent on 3s — the Rockets literally came out firing in Game 1 against the NBA’s best defense.
And shooting. And slicing, attacking and dissecting.
San Antonio was so un-Spurs like at the start that Popovich almost called more timeouts (two) in the initial 4 minutes, 5 seconds than his team netted points (six). It only got worse. “We lost and they won and they played better. … . We disobeyed a lot of basic basketball rules,” said Popovich, who semi-joked that the Spurs needed to have wine ready in a back room when he got off the podium.
Take away do-everything Leonard, and San Antonio would have been down 25-6 while AT&T Center’s bass-heavy speakers were still pumping out lame “Go Spurs Go” hype music.
When it was 28-13 Rockets, D’Antoni’s system had resulted in 11 3-point attempts among the team’s initial 18 total shots.
And while Popovich turned to 10 different players in 12 minutes to wake up the league’s secondbest team, the Rockets simply played the same game they did for all 82 regular-season contests, punching the Spurs in the face over and over.
“The defense was good and we hit some shots. … Defense is always the key,” said D’Antoni, sounding and looking like a onegame genius.
Ryan Anderson returned to his normal 3-sinking self.
Trevor Ariza rediscovered his stroke, scoring 15 first-half points and going 3-of-6 beyond the arc.
Nene and Clint Capela punished San Antonio inside — poor Pau Gasol. James Harden just swished, dished and cooked.
It was 69-39 road team at halftime. It wasn’t even that close.
A seriously misplaced “MVP” chant for Leonard late in the second quarter said it all.
As did D’Antoni calmly watching from the sideline as his Rockets soared, while Popovich pulled his staff together on the hardwood in desperate search for an immediate answer.
Reborn against Memphis, Tony Parker (3-of-9) again looked ancient with Pat Beverley roaring in his face.
Manu Ginobili still doesn’t look right.
I forgot LaMarcus Aldridge actually existed until I realized he played 25 minutes and went 2-of-7 from the field for four useless points.
When owner Les Alexander and general manager Daryl Morey bet big on D’Antoni last May, they dreamed bigger. But not even the Rockets’ brain trust could have envisioned the heights of Game 1, which had the Rockets often looking like one of the greatest teams in NBA history and the lazy Spurs three losses away from being finished.
Before the beatdown, Alexander paid for 150 people — team employees, fans, players’ families — to attend Game 1, filling four buses from Houston.
By the end of the 27-point blowout, a deserted arena dominated by five huge championship banners belonged to a joyous collection of remaining red shirts and the peak (thus far) of the D’Antoni Show.
And what a show Game 1 was.