Inept offense leads to blowout loss, Rockets’ ninth in a row.
Inept offense turns tight game into rout and seals ninth consecutive loss
When the Rockets’ losing streak began, they typically had a terrible stretch they had to overcome and then hope they had something left to steal a win.
Those were the relatively good old days.
They now typically go through a pair of horrible shooting stretches that allow them no chance. They overcame the first run of misfiring on Wednesday. But when the offense fell apart in the second half, too, the Cavaliers blew them out in the fourth quarter, building a 19-point lead before sending the Rockets to a ninth consecutive loss 112-96 at Rocket Mortgage Arena in Cleveland.
The losing streak, including six consecutive road losses, is just one shy of the longest in the NBA this season, the 10-game streak the Cavaliers ended on Tuesday in the first half of their back-to-back.
Victor Oladipo came back after missing four games with a strained foot to score 17 points but made just 1 of 8 3-pointers. John Wall had 20 points but with only three assists as the Rockets made just 10 of 33 3pointers.
The Cavaliers, the only team with
a worst shooting percentage from the 3-point line than the Rockets, made 16 of 36 3s but also scored well inside, especially in the second half when they put up 32 of their 52 paint points. Center Jarrett Allen made 10 of 11 shots, scoring 26 points with 18 rebounds, while guard Collin Sexton scored 16 of his 23 points in the second half.
That scoring blew the game open. But the Rockets’ sudden power outage did not give them much of a chance.
The game was tied at 71 with 3½ minutes left in the third quarter when it began to slip away from the Rockets when they once again could not put the ball in the basket.
The Cavs dropped in a few 3s along the way and finished a few breaks. But the Rockets went through another long stretch where they missed nearly everything they put up from the rim to the 3-point line.
The Rockets made 1 of 4 shots to end the third quarter and just 2 of 13 to start the fourth. As much as their losing streak was marked by generating and missing wide-open shots, Wednesday they struggled to get good looks. After Dylan Windler put in a pair of 3s and Sexton hit another, the Cavaliers had outscored the Rockets 30-14 in the 12 minutes since the game was tied.
The Rockets finally got a few layups to go. But when Isaac Okoro drained another 3, the 15th of the night for the Cavaliers, the Rockets trailed by 17 with less than four minutes to go.
The Rockets got off to another terrible start from the 3-point line, but this time they seemed to know what to do about it. They made just 1 of 10 3s in the first quarter and trailed by as much as 11.
That was not a good sign for a team that has won just 2 of 19 games when trailing by 10 points or more. But after trailing 27-17 after a quarter, they spent the second quarter attacking the rim and turned things around.
That began with Eric Gordon, who returned to his sixth man role and went scoreless in the opening quarter, and David Nwaba getting to the rim. Danuel House Jr. who had hit a pair of 3s, added a hard slam on JaVale McGee. When Wall checked back in, he finished a few drives and set up Jae’Sean Tate inside to complete the half with the Rockets leading 50-48.
The Rockets average 47.5 points in the paint but scored 32 in the lane in the first half, including 22 in the second quarter when they turned things around. Even with Allen going 6 of 7 in the first half, the Rockets held the Cavs, who lead the NBA in paint scoring, to 20 points in the paint.
In a matchup of the two worst 3-point shooting teams in the NBA, scoring inside seemed likely to be important. For the Rockets, it turned things around to give them a fresh start in the second half in their hopes of ending the losing streak.
Instead, they ran into another long stretch clanging the rims as another team easily pulled away.