Allowing Thunder to extend series could have adverse effect on freshness factor in next round
Playoff series aren’t supposed to be easy, unless one team outplays the other. On that front, it matters not which team is better.
The Rockets didn’t necessarily enter their first-round series against the Oklahoma City Thunder expecting the best-of-seven to be a breeze. But they were confident.
They should have been. Logic and reason said if they played well, the second round would be pretty mush assured.
Nothing from the first two games gave them pause.
Game 1: Houston led the contest for 44½ minutes, including the last 3½ quarters, en route to a dominant 15-point win.
Game 2: A bit more of a chal
lenge, as Houston didn’t take control of the lead for good until there was just 8:31 left to play. From there, the Rockets outscored the Thunder by 13 points to cruise to victory.
Two games later, though, the Rockets find themselves in a series that is much more difficult than it could have been, than it should have been, because of their inability to close.
Execute a simple inbounds play with a twopoint lead and 24 seconds remaining or make a free throw with nine seconds left and the Thunder would likely have been in a never-recovered-from 3-0 hole.
Hold onto a 15-point second-half lead by making more than 4 of 25 3-point shots to end the game — or, perhaps, drive to the basket instead of launching from deep — and OKC would be facing elimination Wednesday.
Instead, the Rockets weren’t sharp, weren’t smart and launched a host of bricks.
“We had a chance to win. We just didn’t do it,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said.
The good news for the Rockets is they aren’t losing this series to the Thunder — the teams are tied at two wins apiece entering Wednesday’s Game 5.
The bad news is the Rockets are messing around enough that they might lose the next series.
After losing the series opener to Portland, the Lakers are one win from eliminating the Trail Blazers, having dominated three games in a row.
The Rockets could find themselves in a Game 7 on Sunday. Then, the easy series will be a winnertake-all nail-biter. They earned it.
A host of mistakes and a pivotal official’s error resulted in one loss. A total breakdown led to another.
The Rockets gave away the lead in Game 4 on both ends of the floor.
“Obviously, teams are going to make runs,” James Harden said. “But it’s the way they made their run. We weren’t getting the shots we wanted offensively, and defensively we weren’t sticking to our principles. So, it was a disaster on both ends.”
Experienced teams with such leadership don’t often fall apart. It would be such an indictment on Harden should the Rockets not advance.
This is D’Antoni’s fourth season with then Rockets. In that time, they have never failed to advance out of the first round. This could be a first.
The Rockets don’t need the rest. The global pandemic’s effect on the schedule has made fatigue less of a factor.
Mentally, the Rockets feel the same way about the Lakers as they did before COVID-19 arrives.
They’ve already made it more difficult than it should have been.