To Harden, Paul, playoffs offer true measuring stick
The Rockets had openly pointed to their championship aspirations since before anyone else put them in that conversation. They were not about to stop now, not after 65 wins and a place atop the NBA standings.
“The ultimate goal is to hold that trophy up, so until we do that, there’s no celebrations,” guard James Harden said. “We haven’t done anything yet.” Not anything? “We all know,” guard Chris Paul said, “we will be judged by the postseason.”
That seems a harsh way to evaluate the only Rockets team to take the NBA’s best record into the playoffs, especially if the pass/fail grade will only be awarded based on whether they hold a championship parade. It might, however, speak to their aspirations since those summer minicamps, when the Golden State Warriors were assumed to be beyond the reach of other teams seeking to challenge
their supremacy and the Rockets’ endeavor to take their best shot was viewed as somehow noble, if quixotic.
No one believes they are tilting at windmills now, which might be a measure of regularseason success along with the 65-17 record, three double-digit winning streaks and Harden’s presumed MVP season.
Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said the past six months should not be forgotten, or even reduced to a warmup for whatever comes next. A champion as a coach and player in Italy, where regular-season championships are celebrated as accomplishments separate from the postseason, D’Antoni might not be ready to celebrate yet but did think the accomplishments along the way are meaningful.
“I read something the other day,” D’Antoni said. “‘Sure, James Harden should be the MVP. Sure Chris Paul and James have been great. Sure, they set a franchise record for (wins). But they’ll be ultimately judged by if they win a championship or not.’ Really? It doesn’t diminish what these guys have done.
“The way I celebrate it is I enjoy every fricken day I go in the locker room with these guys and go on the court and all the games they’ve won and all the trips we’ve made back from games on the road. That’s what’s enjoyable.
“Now, obviously, we would like to celebrate it with a championship. But it doesn’t diminish Steve Nash, how good he was for three or four years in this league. I don’t buy that it’s all about the rings. There’s a lot of guys who have rings that can’t play a lick. They happened to be on the bench with some great players. I don’t buy into that.”
The Rockets also do not believe they are playing to make amends for last season’s stunning second-round loss. This is not about redemption. Game 6 might have driven the offseason, and it might have made the Rockets “hungrier,” as Trevor Ariza put it. But after a season that began with a victory over the Warriors on ring night and ended with 65 wins, the Rockets have long since eased the pain from the loss nearly a year ago.
“I think we are comfortable with what we expect,” Ariza said. “We know every night we’re going to give it out all, wherever the chips fall. We are a confident team. We believe in ourselves.
“I think we’re all driven by the potential our team has. We know our team has a lot of potential. We have a lot of great players in here, and we all want to win. That’s the mentality.”
Harden in particular has received more praise and criticism than anyone around him. If others refer to the Rockets’ postseason as a referendum on him (along with Paul and D’Antoni), Harden remains unconcerned with how he is viewed now, or with a chance to take care of last season’s unfinished business.
“Not at all,” Harden said. “I’m just excited about this year, who we have, what we accomplished, what we can accomplish. There’s a number of possibilities we have, not only for this year but for the next three or four years. This team we have right now, it’s pretty cool. It’s fun to be a part of.
“We just want to go out there and compete at a high level, execute at both ends of the floor and play with the confidence we’ve been having.”
The Rockets are a team with one championship ring in their locker room, Ariza’s from his 2008-09 season with the Los Angeles Lakers.
But when asked what the history of a veteran team means to this season’s quest, D’Antoni said, “Zero.
“That means 29 teams look back every year,” D’Antoni said. “It’s hard to win. … Last year with San Antonio, they were second, we were third, they beat us. Wow, they beat you. Well, they beat us all season, too. We just didn’t have enough to get over the hump. We’ll see. This year, we had a great regular season and we’ll try to do it in the postseason.
“Even if we finished third, everybody going into the playoffs; like the regular season, you go in thinking you’re going to be the best team. We have that mentality. Everybody does. We had a great regular season, but it doesn’t matter. To me, what it does mean is we’re pretty good.”