Stoic in defeat
» Despite quick turnaround, loss of Ricky Rubio, Utah makes no excuses.
James Harden hit his step-back 3s and floaters, maneuvering through the celebrated Jazz defense as if following directions from the GPS in his head. Clint Capela took passes inside and slammed them home, reminding himself to bend the rims before Rudy Gobert could interfere. Chris Paul hit midrange jumpers. P.J. Tucker knocked down corner 3s. Luc Mbah a Moute, back from his shoulder injury ahead of the Rockets’ most optimistic projections, nailed the first shot he took.
For a stretch Sunday, the Rockets rolled as if filling shopping carts with everything on the list until the shelves were bare. It didn’t last. It didn’t have to. But even that might have been beneficial as they took their 110-96 win over the Utah Jazz to open their second-round Western Conference playoff series while also getting a useful reminder that it might not be quite as easy as it appeared.
“It was important for us to set the tone (in the) first game,” Capela said after pairing 16 points with 12 rebounds against Gobert, his French League role model and the favorite to win Defensive Player of the Year. “We know it’s going to be a tough series. Even whenever we had that lead at halftime, this is a team where you can never let go. You’re going to have to stay focused until the end because it’s going to be a tough series.”
No trouble in first half
The Rockets led by as many as 27 on the way to a 64-39 halftime lead, starting as they never could in the first round.
They made 40.5 percent of their shots and 31.6 percent of their 3s in the first half of their five games against the Timberwolves. Against the Jazz on Sunday, they made 53.5 percent of their shots and 62.5 percent of their 3s in the first half, getting nearly everything done on both ends of the floor that they could have wanted.
“It felt good to have everybody out there on the same page and in sync,” said Harden, who had 41 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. “Defensively, rotations were good. We’re communicating. It made us feel good. When we’re doing that, it’s pretty scary.”
Yet as much as they warned one another to maintain their intensity, the Rockets didn’t. They missed the sort of open looks they had been hitting. But more than that, they grew sloppy, triggering the Jazz’s comeback.
“My job is to nitpick and try to get better where we’re not good,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said. “We got careless, and all that came from the sloppiness in general. Those are things we can control. That’s what makes them good — that we can play a lot better than this.”
When the Jazz scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter, the Rockets’ 27-point lead was down to 11. D’Antoni returned Harden to the floor about three minutes ahead of his usual schedule.
“I was sweating it,” D’Antoni said.
Harden scored the Rockets’ next eight points and set up Capela with a lob that pushed the lead to 17. The Jazz never made a move again. Donovan Mitchell, who led the Jazz with 21 points, turned his right ankle, left the game and briefly returned. He made just one of six shots in the fourth quarter, none after he went down awkwardly and limped to the bench.
‘It’s human nature’
The Rockets, however, had struggled long enough and recovered soon enough to get a potentially valuable reminder without causing any real damage or tempting disaster.
“We had a bunch of games when we had a big lead,” said Tucker, who matched his career playoff high with 15 points. “We see it. We go, ‘Here we go, fellas. We’re up 25, 30, whatever. Let’s get focused. Let’s try to keep it going.’ It’s human nature to relax a little bit. The letdown in the third quarter, Coach doesn’t even have to talk about it. We already know.
“We can’t do that going forward. Especially in this series, these guys are going to keep playing. They’re not going to give up. They can cut the lead quick if we have those lapses. It’s something we have to improve on.”
Then again, the Rockets would love another chance to have to stay intense with a 27-point lead. For now, it was enough to get the win and a reminder of the sort of threat the Jazz can be.