Defense needs to rectify all the uncontested 3s
MINNEAPOLIS — As coaches of teams stomped by a lesser squad are wont to do in the immediate aftermath, Mike D’Antoni pointed to his team’s failure to match the intensity brought by the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
After a night’s sleep and some early-morning film study of the game, the Rockets’ coach sang the same tune before Sunday’s practice.
“It’s a competition, it’s a battle, a battle of wills, and they imposed their will on us (Saturday), and now it’s up to us,” D’Antoni said.
D’Antoni’s best player had a little bit of a different take on the Rockets’ embarrassing 121105 defeat.
In James Harden’s analysis, the Rockets matched Minnesota’s energy and intensity. Their failure was more about atten-
tion to detail and focus on defensive assignments.
Harden says the Rockets handled whatever extra boost the Timberwolves might have gotten from a home crowd that hadn’t seen a playoff game in 14 years. After all, he noted, the Rockets led by a point after the first quarter and trailed by only one at the half.
In the third and fourth quarters — when they surrendered 69 points (the second-most points they have allowed after the break this season) — the Rockets fell apart, reverting to a slew of bad defensive habits they thought they kicked at midseason.
“We saw things that we just allowed to happen too easy. It won’t happen again,” Harden said.
We’ll know soon enough. Entering Monday’s Game 4, the Rockets hold a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven first-round playoff matchup.
Whether it is intensity or focus, or both, the Rockets need to find a fix.
What should have been a romp is close to becoming an unnecessary test of mettle.
Win Monday, and Game 3 becomes an easily forgotten bump in the road.
Another loss, and all their accomplishments this season, including a franchise-record 65 wins, will be called into question.
To their credit, the Rockets hardly seemed fazed by what happened Saturday night. As has been the case throughout this season, they say they are less concerned about what Minnesota did than what they know they can do.
It is an approach that has served the Rockets well. No finger-pointing, no blaming, just group accountability packaged with confidence in their ability to perform.
“I’ve been saying it all year: It’s a strange situation with our team,” Chris Paul said. “(After a loss) we’re just like, ‘All right, let’s start the next game at 0-0 and go get it done.’
“We’re one of the few teams that we get a chance to worry only about us. We’re only worried about us.”
The immediate worry, as it were, isn’t the newfound confidence the Timberwolves picked up with a win but the “butt naked” 3s, as Paul describes them, the Timberwolves launched in Game 3.
Don’t feel bad if you have never heard the term butt-naked 3s. All you need to know is the Timberwolves were uncovered on a lot of their shots.
Minnesota made 10 wide-open 3-pointers (no defender within six feet), and five open treys (a defender between four and six feet away) to account for their secondhighest 3-point total of the season.
The 15 uncontested makes from 3-point range is more than the Rockets allowed the Timberwolves in the first two games of the series combined.
Harden said that is easily correctable.
“Those are things that we can correct ourselves … as long as our focus level is there every possession,” Harden said. “It doesn’t matter about the offense. If we take care of those things defensively, we’ll get it done.”
D’Antoni and assistant coach Jeff Bzdelik, who is largely responsible for the defensive game plans, will point out the miscues and misplays, but it is on the players to perform better.
One good thing about this Rockets group is it doesn’t panic. Of course, there is a danger in being so cool that you fail to recognize the challenge in front of you.
Minnesota presents a test D’Antoni says requires his team to player “harder, quicker, with a little bit more competitive fire.”
“We’re in a dogfight,” D’Antoni said. “We competed, but not at the level of desperation they were at.”
The Rockets aren’t in desperation mode. Yet.
If they don’t bring more intensity to the court, that could change Monday night.