Westbrook starting to feel more at ease within offense
CLEVELAND — After his top-scoring and bestshooting game of the season, Rockets guard Russell Westbrook described progress as the result of “just playing.”
Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said Westbrook’s play, however, could be about more than that, from getting more accustomed to the Rockets’ offense to a tweak in the rotation to allow him to remain on the floor longer to start games and in the second half.
“I thought offensively it was his best game,” D’Antoni said. “I think he’s feeling more comfortable. I think (in) our pattern, he feels more comfortable. We’ll keep working on it and hopefully it will keep getting better. But offensively, it was really good.”
Westbrook had been checking out of games during the first timeout, roughly six minutes into each half. Recently, he has remained in games for several more minutes. With James Harden playing through the first and third quarters, Westbrook has played eight to nine minutes to begin the first and third quarters and then has replaced Harden to begin the second and fourth quarters.
“He never was used to coming out so early in the first quarter, so maybe that throws him off a little bit,” D’Antoni said.
In the 119-118 loss to Sacramento on Monday, Westbrook scored 34 points on 13-of-17 shooting, hitting the 3-pointer to tie it with 67 seconds left and the layup to give the Rockets the lead with one second remaining.
Team unworried about standings
Though Rockets coach
Mike D’Antoni and his players said they are not conceding anything with four months of the season remaining — even given the Lakers’ rush to a 21-3 record — they said the goal remains to keep improving, regardless of where they end up in the standings. At 15-8, they are 5½ games behind the Lakers.
D’Antoni, however, said he was not entirely surprised that there is not as much parity in the Western Conference as many predicted.
“I thought we’d be the top team and everybody else bunched together. It didn’t happen that way,” D’Antoni said. “It is way early. What is it, game 23? We’ve got (almost) 60 left. Anything can happen. Injuries will be part of it. We’ll see at the end who’s standing. We just have to worry about the Rockets. We have to play better and be sure we’re developing championship habits that carry into the playoffs. That’s our focus.”
A year ago, the Rockets were 11-14. They finished tied for the third-best record in the West. As with last December, they are dealing with injuries, and this season also have had players out with illnesses.
They had just eight players at Tuesday’s practice with Austin Rivers and Tyson Chandler not on the flight to Cleveland because of flu-like symptoms. But they do have the recent history of getting on a roll this time of year.
“This is the NBA. You play 82 games,” forward Danuel House Jr. said. “Stuff is going to happen. The night is still young. This is just the first part of the season. Once you get to the second part of the season is when everything needs to be gear tight. Right now is to get all the errors out of the way if possible, so we can see what teams are trying to do. Everyone is just learning each other.
“Right around February, after the All-Star break, that’s when it kicks in like, ‘We can’t have those (issues), this or that. We’ve seen that before. This is how we react to that.’ Right now, we’re still learning.”