Heat offer unneeded reminder of issues
Perhaps the image is seared into the Rockets’ collective memory, making it unnecessary to review in great detail. More than the specifics — the 26-4 Miami Heat romp to open the game, the 41-point lead early in the second quarter — the Rockets likely recall how it felt to be run off the floor so completely.
“I don’t think we have to,” coach Mike D’Antoni said of revisiting the horror film that the day in Miami produced. “I think they do know that. We addressed the mistakes that we made so we can, especially defensively, get better.”
The mistakes likely accounted for the unusually long video session Tuesday. But rather than specifically studying the blowout loss in Miami, the emphasis was on what needs to improve to escape a three-game slide since the eight-game winning streak that followed the Miami meltdown.
It just works out, likely not co
incidentally, that the mistakes in Miami also were issues in recent losses, especially Sunday against the Mavericks.
“They play a little bit like Dallas does,” D’Antoni said. “They spread you out and they have a lot of great shooters around. You’ve got to play 24 seconds, or they keep coming at you. They have individually real strong offensive players, so they keep you on their toes. It’s a game of energy and a game of concentration.”
The Rockets had neither of those qualities when they previously met the Heat. They had the focus needed only after stumbling starts in their past two games. That provided enough to correct without examining the failings in the previous game against the Heat.
“We haven’t,” Harden said of studying the video from the 129-100 loss more than three weeks earlier.
“We watched a little bit of what they like to do, but it’s more so on us, just correcting things that we can get better at.
“(Limiting) turnovers can help our defense in transition, rebounding the basketball. Those are the main things. Throughout the course of the shot clock, we’re pretty solid. (Limiting) transition points off our turnovers and our rebounding the basketball and we give ourselves a chance to win.”
Those have been issues throughout the season. The Rockets rank 22nd in second-chance points allowed, 24th in points allowed off turnovers. The defense, however, generally turned around after the Miami game. The Rockets had the second-ranked defense in the NBA in the eight-game winning streak that followed the loss to the Heat.
“There’s a lot of things we have to get better at, but there’s a lot of good things we’re doing,” D’Antoni
said. “We just got to get better.
“Getting back on defense, not turning the ball over in the open court where they score off of you, just a little bit better communication. The other team is going to score. We just have to do a better job mostly on getting back on defense and … following the coverages.”
The defense has fallen off in the past two games, but there is a confidence that the recent issues can be corrected and cannot be compared to the shortcomings when the Rockets no-showed in the first meeting with the Heat.
“It’s easy when you talk about it. It’s easy when you look at it. But it’s tough,” Rockets forward P.J. Tucker said. “It’s tough to play defense with so many gifted players, really good coaches, good schemes. It’s a part of it, something people relish. You’ve got to do it if you want to win.
“That’s the nature of it. I don’t think anybody is consistently the best throughout the season. It’s a long season. We’ve had injuries, we have a lot of guys playing a lot of minutes, a lot of games in a short amount of time
(12 in 20 days beginning with the game in Miami). It’s a tough little skid, but we’ll be fine. Just keep on playing. Just keep working.”
In some ways, the Rockets could benefit by looking back to the loss in Miami, and not just to correct mistakes, given the winning streak that immediately followed that game. With losses in three consecutive games since that post-Miami run, whatever inspiration came from the worst showing of the season could be useful now.
“I think partly (the winning streak) was a reaction,” Tucker said.
But the Rockets did not feel the need to find motivation in a bad loss weeks ago. They had more recent missteps to consider and correct.