WHAT’S THE DEAL?
Playoff Rockets yet to resemble 65-victory crew
MINNEAPOLIS — They won 65 of 82 games. Their season dates to October. James Harden has poured in 44 points in a playoff game. Chris Paul took over a Game 2 blowout, ending up with a game-high 27.
So why does it feel like we haven’t seen the real Rockets this postseason? Because we haven’t. Heck, even they admit it. “It’s been a long time,” said Harden, backing up coach Mike D’Antoni’s statement that it’s been a while since the Rockets have played a complete 48minute game that mattered.
You have to go back to mid-March to find the last time the Rockets really had something on the line. After the disappointment that was 121-105 Minnesota in Game 3, they do again.
I had Rockets 4-1 in this
Western Conference firstround series before it began. Rediscover the fire Monday night at Target Center, and they’re in line for a few extra days off before the second round begins.
But after three uneven playoff games and an erratic start to a postseason that could end up in the NBA Finals, I walked out of the Timberwolves’ arena late Saturday and returned for practice Sunday morning thinking the same thing: When are the 65-win Rockets going to show up?
“I thought (Game 3) we were waiting for them to lose, instead of going out and trying to win the game,” D'Antoni said.
I’m not going to overreact to one road playoff defeat during a postseason that could last two months. I will point out the obvious, though: 65-win teams normally don’t take the court waiting for a No. 8 seed to give in.
“We were up 2-0. It’s human nature — it sets in a little bit,” D’Antoni said. “We didn’t match their crowd or their players’ intensity. Desperation. Not the appropriate amount of fear. And we have to do that — and we will.”
Golden State also fell Sunday, preventing a 4-0 sweep of San Antonio, which gives the Rockets a little more leeway.
But “prove it in the playoffs” surrounded these Rockets all season — even with 14-, 17- and 11-game win streaks and even after the best regular season in team history — and our initial firstround look at this squad has only brought old questions back to the surface.
Three of the top six rotation players (P.J. Tucker, Trevor Ariza, Eric Gordon) have been off-target and disappeared too often. Harden is shooting 40 percent (26-of-65) from the field after connecting on 44.9 percent of his attempts during the regular season. And the Rockets never bought into the old-school concept of team defense in Game 3, which allowed everyone from Derrick Rose and Karl-Anthony Towns to Andrew Wiggins and Jeff Teague to find his playoff rhythm.
D’Antoni answered a question about a wake-up call by joking about the advancements of smartphone technology.
Teams that win 65 games normally don't need a first-round slap in the face.
Yet the Rockets’ coach was adamant that his team didn’t match Minnesota’s intensity, while his two star players said that wasn’t an issue. (Even though it clearly was.)
We’ll forget Game 3 if the Rockets close this out in five. But if it gets crazy Monday night back at howling Target Center? The floodgates of talk radio and Twitter will be ripped open.
“I don’t want to say, ‘Oh, God, this is desperation.’ Then what do I tell you the next day?” D’Antoni said. “So yeah, this is a big game. They’re all big games. They’re never out of it till that last game.”
Harden is too good not to take over. In Game 3, he bounced and jabbed instead of constantly attacking like an MVP and the most dangerous scorer on the planet.
But if an over-guarded Harden is going to set up and defer, then his supporting cast must step up and sink open looks. Gordon is shooting 28.2 percent from the field and 23.1 percent on 3s, which tells you that didn’t happen in Game 3.
The real Rockets open full throttle Monday or, at worst, claw it out in the final minutes and fly home for a celebratory closeout at Toyota Center.
The team that annually plays and toys with your on-and-off belief drops another in Minnesota and turns this into the series that no one expected.
The Rockets were brilliant from October through April. You couldn’t defend them. They finally could defend you.
Three games into the NBA’s real season, they’re shining in spurts and trying to reconnect as a team.
I’ve still got the Rockets in five. As long as they don’t blow Game 4.