More questions than answers at this point
Run of one-sided defeats reveals a loss of identity and chemistry
The Rockets do not know who they are right now.
In following up last year’s 65win regular season and shortcoming in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals with a 1-5 last-place standing in the West to begin this season, they have called their performance “embarrassing” and “crap,” saying they are “still learning” and “still trying to figure it out.” They are as unrecognizable to themselves as they are to the public watching their repeated blowout losses unfold.
Worse, the Rockets do not know what exactly they are going to do about it.
“We’re obviously struggling,” coach Mike D’Antoni said after Tuesday’s 104-85 home loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. “We’ve got some talking, looking and figuring it out to do.”
But they already had spent four days between games talking about, looking at and diagnosing the issues, only to wind up without a single lead while falling behind 28 points to a team playing its fourth game in six nights.
“I don’t have all the answers,”
D’Antoni said. “If I did, we would’ve solved them last week.”
The Rockets have the NBA’s fifth-worst offensive rating (103.8 points per 100 possessions) and seventh-worst defensive rating (113.3), have allowed the most points in the paint (59.9 per game) and own the second-lowest field goal percentage (41.2). The list the Rockets top is the league’s biggest disappointments in October.
“Through the first couple of games it was our defense,” guard Eric Gordon said. “Now it’s starting to really transfer to the offense. We haven’t put together a really good game where we’re doing well on both ends.”
Shooting a mystery
Gordon was impressive last year for his consistent scoring and elite long-range accuracy. Out of 31 players averaging at least 16 shots per game this season, Gordon has the worst shooting percentage at 30.6, which also is the worst among the Rockets.
After the recent loss, he shook his head, puzzled. He is shooting 23.4 percent from 3-point range.
“It ain’t just me,” he said. “We’re struggling to get over 100 points.”
Noted point guard Chris Paul, who is 9-for-32 since returning from his twogame suspension: “I can’t throw the ball in the ocean.”
“We’re not getting easy shots,” Gordon said. “That’s what it really boils down to.”
That might be how the Rockets feel. It is not the reality. They have missed two-thirds of 120 open shots — when the shooter has 6 or more feet of space — and more than half of their attempts within 10 feet of the basket.
The Rockets rank 27th with a 48.7 effective fieldgoal percentage, which accounts for free throws, the kind of uncontested shot that D’Antoni is baffled to see his team missing more often than expected.
“Foul shots are pretty good shots,” he said. “They don’t make them.”
He, like Gordon, was left shaking his head, unable to wrap his mind around the continued failure.
“It’s hard to explain sometimes,” D’Antoni said. “Just a basket every once in a while would be nice.”
Said Gordon: “This is a different team than last year. Last season, from the start, we could tell how good we were going to be. Now, we’re in a figuring-it-out kind of mode.”
That is a realization the Rockets seem slow to accept. They inextricably are tethered to the standard set last season. Some players are referencing it to inspire confidence in an inevitable turnaround.
“You can go on a 20game winning streak and be right back in it,” forward Gerald Green said. “I’m really comfortable with this group of guys I’ve got behind me.”
But hard-edged P.J. Tucker rejects the past, however successful and recent, as if it is a painful distraction. “It’s gone,” he said. These Rockets look and sound as defeated as their record suggests.
“Man, we (need) to see what it feels like to win,” Paul said.
The Rockets begin a fivegame trip Friday.
“Hell, our record on the road (1-1) ain’t that much better,” Paul said. “We start off in Brooklyn, try to get a win there, then on to Chicago and Indiana. Ain’t no one gonna feel sorry for ourselves, so we have got to get better.”
The Rockets have seven returning member from last season’s run. The strained hamstrings of James Harden and James Ennis have bungled D’Antoni’s desired rotations, forcing backups to step up and rookies to improve quickly. On-court chemistry either has been interrupted or stalled.
“We’ve got to play for one another a little bit better,” Gordon said. “We’ve got to make an extra pass.”
First, it was they could not defend effectively. Then it was they could not score sufficiently. From porous to poor us, a roster relying on mediocre defensemen and missing its injured chief bucket-getter already is seeking better players to carry out the NBA’s monolithic 3-and-D style that D’Antoni spawned.
‘Enough guys’ or not?
D’Antoni dismissed a need to shake up the roster when he said: “We’ve got enough guys.”
But general manager Daryl Morey’s interest in trading for Minnesota’s Jimmy Butler suggests the organization knows it could use more than an extra pass.
The core veterans have not been the ballast through this rocky stretch. They have not buoyed a winning culture the way they had when injuries sidelined Paul and Harden last year. Carmelo Anthony and Michael Carter-Williams, new additions who the Rockets signed on minimum contracts, have not done anything to suggest they are not expendable.
With the Trail Blazers ahead 25 points in the third quarter, the fate of another home loss all but assured, Morey left his usual ingame hideout and walked along the sideline to sit with owner Tilman Fertitta and chief executive officer Tad Brown at midcourt.
By the fourth quarter, Brown looked over his shoulder at a family member seated 10 rows back.
They shared a knowing glance and shrug, evoking a question looming over the rest of the Rockets’ season: What are you going to do?