Former Hightower star House at home in the playoffs.
Former Hightower, Texas A&M star House producing in many ways in second playoff stint
Rockets guard Danuel House Jr., who made his way back home to Houston while making his way in the NBA, totaled 34 points in seven playoff games last season.
A budding House scored more than half that in one outing Thursday, providing the Rockets a big boost in their 111-98 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 2 of the opening round of the NBA playoffs.
“Last year with my playoff performance, I was kind of harder on myself. But knowing my feet have gotten wet (now) … all I want to do is contribute,” said House, who scored 19 points, helping the Rockets to a 2-0 series lead in the NBA bubble near Orlando, Fla. “I want to do more for this team because last year I feel like I let people down, including myself.”
House, who played at Hightower, the University of Houston and Texas A&M, was too hard on himself about 2019, considering he was making his first postseason appearance after he was undrafted out of A&M in 2016.
But after getting his feet wet a year ago, as he described it, House dove right in the deep end Thursday on a subpar shooting night for NBA scoring leader James Harden and with Russell Westbrook still sidelined by a strained quad muscle.
“This year, I came in with a new mindset, a new mentality,” House said. “And it’s great to have leaders like Harden, Russ, EG (Eric Gordon), all the older guys who are instilling confidence in me and telling me to play my game the best way.”
House oozed confidence with Game 2 on the line in the fourth quarter. His 19 points were second only to Harden’s 21, but he made one more field goal than Harden on three fewer attempts (House finished 6-of-13 from the field). He also made three of eight 3-pointers, compared to two of 11 for Harden.
The Thunder led 80-77 early in the fourth quarter before the late-rising Rockets reeled off 17 consecutive points, a stretch in which House sank a 3-pointer, grabbed an offensive rebound for a layup, and sank two free throws.
“As you go deeper, you need your team,” Harden said of House and the reserves’ ample contributions in quashing the fourth-quarter deficit. “You need guys who play well and guys who make big shots and make big plays defensively and offensively. … That was huge for us.”
House did it all in Game 2, leading the Rockets with nine rebounds after never having more than five in a playoff game. He also led the Rockets with five assists in their 123-108 clapping of the Thunder in Game 1 after never having led the team in assists in his previous 109 games with the franchise.
“I’m out here competing to make sure I give my brothers my all,” House said. “My objective is to find more to do. Even if there isn’t more to do, find more to do. Keep yourself busy and keep yourself moving and playing with a lot of energy. There’s always stuff that can be done.
“Even if you don’t score a basket, as long as I’m defending, rebounding, standing in front of someone, I’m going to be happy, I promise you that. And I’m pretty sure everyone else in the locker room is going to be happy.”
Chief among them coach Mike D’Antoni and general manager Daryl Morey, who signed House to the Rockets’ summer league team in 2018 following his abridged stints with the Washington Wizards and Phoenix Suns.
“Everybody who gets to the NBA, at some point they kicked some tail somewhere,” D’Antoni said of signing valuable role players like House, Austin Rivers and Jeff Green, who all have contributed handsomely this postseason. “They’re good, and then it’s just putting them in the right spot and getting their confidence up and having players believe in them.
“They’re like anybody else — there’s a very fine line between being really good in this league and just being in the league.”
The fourth-seeded Rockets, who entered the playoffs with the same regular-season record as the fifth-seeded Thunder (4428), will try to go up 3-0 on Oklahoma City starting 5 p.m. Saturday in the bubble.