DAUNTING ROAD AHEAD
As playoffs begin, Timberwolves not your garden-variety conference 8th seed
I f the Rockets who had nothing better to do during Thursday’s meaningless loss to the Sacramento Kings had stayed in the locker room to watch the end of the Minnesota Timberwolves’ game against the Denver Nuggets, no one could blame them. Not only was it the last step toward determining the Rockets’ firstround opponent, it also was wonderful theater, something the game between the Kings and a group of people who know James Harden personally was not.
The Rockets held out Harden, Chris Paul, Trevor Ariza, Eric Gordon, Ryan Anderson, Clint Capela and Nene for the 82nd and final game of the regular season, and Luc Mbah a Moute was back in Houston after his MRI.
If they stayed in the locker room to watch the overtime in Minneapolis, the Rockets were duly impressed with the team they will face. It says something about the strength of the Western Conference, as if enough had not been said already, that the eighth seed that needed overtime on the last day of the season to get in, boasts two All-Stars, along with former All-Star Jeff Teague, Andrew Wiggins, Taj Gibson and Jamal Crawford.
The Rockets swept the Timberwolves in four games in the regular season, generally by firing a ton of 3-pointers that Minnesota could not stop or match. But in the Rockets’ first time as the top seed, they have a remarkably challenging road ahead.
Three points to consider:
1 The T-Wolves can score.
As much as Tom Thibodeau built his reputation on strangling teams defensively, the Timberwolves are loaded with scorers. They generally don’t stop teams and have not stopped the Rockets, though that can be misleading. Minnesota played the bulk of two games against the Rockets without Jimmy Butler, their best defensive player and the pride of Tomball.
Still, the Rockets tend to be at their best against teams that defend with the T-Wolves style, with a priority on protecting the lane. The Rockets can drive and kick, generally finding 3-point shooters to take their offense to another level, from Gerald Green lighting up the last meeting to Ryan Anderson leading a team surge of 10 3pointers in the fourth quarter in the previous meeting.
Even in close games, the Rockets are happy to have the 3-point shooters who work around Harden and Paul fire away. One of the strengths of the Rockets’ season is the way they shoot 3s late in close games, hitting a league-best 41 percent of them in games with a five-point lead or deficit in the final five minutes since Harden returned from his injury Jan. 18 against the Timberwolves.
The uncertainty is what they can expect from two of their most important 3-point shooters and when, a question that has become more pressing with Mbah a Moute out. Anderson missed the final four games of the season. Gordon missed three of four games, making 2 of 9 3-pointers in the one he played. Anderson hit 50 percent of his 3-pointers against the Timberwolves, Gordon 44 percent.
Without Mbah a Moute, who made 55.6 percent of his 3pointers against the Timberwolves, Anderson could be needed at backup power forward or at center. Gordon is always greatly important. At the Rockets’ best, they should be able to score more than enough to be in control of the series. While the Timberwolves shoot 2s, the Rockets take 3s, hitting more than twice as many (69) in the four games between the teams than the Timberwolves (34). While the Rockets take more 3s than any team ever has, the T-Wolves take the fewest in the NBA.
The question will be if or when the Rockets will be their best.
2 The Rockets had everything the regular season could offer locked up before April began. The Timberwolves did not have their playoff spot until after overtime in the season’s 82nd game.
Neither can be entirely thrilled with how they arrive at the playoffs, with the Rockets coasting through much of the final weeks, playing with only spurts of sufficient intensity, and the T-Wolves grinding through playoff-caliber pressure. The Timberwolves won seven of 11 games since the loss to the Rockets, including their final three. They were at times sensational in the regularseason finale against the Nuggets in an intense, emotional play-in game with a Target Center crowd so raucous it was difficult to hear Tom Thibodeau barking.
The Rockets had eight guys out for the final game. With the name-tag version of the Rockets losing to the Kings, the Rockets went 3-3 in April, needed Paul’s runner to end a 17-0 run by the end of the Portland bench to pull out one of those wins. The Rockets similarly needed a game-winner at the buzzer by Green to beat Phoenix to end March. None of that is much of a concern, but the Rockets cannot say they are playing their best, or as they must to beat the Timberwolves.
If they play well, the Rockets should be able to sustain it. Mike D’Antoni has cut the playing time for his regulars and sprinkled in days off, but he also has played them enough that it shouldn’t be a shock when they hit 32 minutes and still have four to six left to play. The Timberwolves might exhale with a happy-to-be-there sense of relief, but that won’t last, particularly when the series gets to Minneapolis. But if the Timberwolves can afford to get to the playoffs and take a look around, the Rockets cannot. They need to be sharp and in control from Game 1, the challenge for the next few days they have not had in the past two weeks.
3 If the Rockets acknowledged paying attention to how the brackets came out beyond the need to know who they will play in Game 1, they might not like the results.
All Western Conference playoff teams pose a threat. But if the conference finals showdown with Golden State is as inevitable as many have assumed, the Rockets have the more physically challenging road to get there, with either Oklahoma City or Utah in the second round.
The Thunder and Jazz are two of the toughest physical challenges possible. They have been outstanding down the stretch, and they have extraordinarily tough home courts. The Warriors, if they get past San Antonio, would play New Orleans or Portland — teams that can pull upsets but won’t leave a mark as would a series against Steven Adams.
All that said, the Rockets’ season-long stance that the opponent is relatively inconsequential should still apply. The Rockets are the top seed with the NBA’s best record. They don’t have to say it, but they should think that those teams should worry about them, not the other way around. That’s worked for them so far. They might as well stick with it now.