Bad start, bad end kill shot at victory
The Rockets gave themselves a chance to win a close game, which took some doing considering the damage done in the first half. They saw again, however, it is difficult to win tight games when they start badly and finish worse.
With another game on the line in the closing minutes, the Rockets crumbled again, falling to the severely shorthanded Pelicans, 122115, on Sunday at Toyota Center, extending their long dry spell in close games.
The Rockets led by four with 6½ minutes remaining but had not won a close game since Jan. 28 against Portland,
lately falling apart with games on the line.
The missed their next six shots after returning their starters to the floor with the Pelicans taking a 110-104 lead after a 10-0 run. Kelly Olynyk drained his fifth 3-pointer.
Olynyk had a seasonhigh 26 points with Christian Wood getting 15 with 12 rebounds. But with Lonzo Ball hitting a career-high eight 3-pointers, the Rockets could not get enough stops down the stretch to take the win.
The Rockets trailed by as much as 14 in the first half to a Pelicans team playing without its most irreplaceable stars, Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram. But there was no mystery about what needed to be done. The Rockets had to stop giving away so many points off turnovers and rebounds to have a chance to rally.
When they did, beginning at the first possessions of the second half, they took off.
Jae’Sean Tate, who was limited by foul trouble to six minutes in the first half, opened the half with a 3-pointer and a long jumper, on his way to 11 third-quarter points. But he also seemed to help increase the Rockets’ intensity on both ends.
The Rockets also seemed to benefit from going with the bigger lineup. With Danuel House Jr. going out in the second quarter when he turned his right ankle, the Rockets played Olynyk and Wood together to start the half with Tate moving to small forward. That allowed them to rebound as they never had in the first half, limiting the Pelicans to just two offensive rebounds in the third quarter.
The Rockets went from an 11-point first half deficit to a three-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.
The Rockets could have viewed a game against the Pelicans, playing without Ingram and Williamson, as an opportunity to get a win. Instead, it turned into an example that being shorthanded does not have to mean having no chance.
The Rockets were without their usual injured players — John Wall, Eric Gordon and David Nwaba — before losing House.
The Pelicans, however, never seemed lacking even without their stars, rookie Kira Lewis Jr., and with Saturday’s addition Isaiah Thomas out while in the NBA health and safety protocols. Nickeil Alexander-Walker went out with a lower leg injury.
The Pelicans did get plenty of help from their hosts. The Rockets were absurdly careless to start the game, piling up sloppy turnovers and as usual failing to get back defensively. The Pelicans, averaging 14.7 points off turnovers per game to rank 27th in the NBA, scored 18 points off the Rockets’ 11 first-half turnovers, seven committed by guard Kevin Porter Jr.
If that did not help the Pelicans enough, the Rockets also could not secure their defensive boards with the Pelicans getting the rebounds on 10 of their 24 missed shots in the first half, not including the offensive rebound that James Johnson grabbed of his own missed rebound to score inside.
The Pelicans are among the league’s best offensive rebounding teams, as Steven Adams’ teams have always been. They average 15 second-chance points, the second most in the NBA. They had 13 in the first half.
Between the points scored off Rockets turnovers and their own missed shots, the Pelicans had little difficulty putting up 70 points in the first half, leading by as much as 14 before Porter ended the half by swishing a 3-pointer from 44 feet.
Olynyk’s 19 first-half points had kept the Rockets in the game. Wood had come on late in the half. But unless the Rockets found a way to get stops and not give away so many chances and points, it did not seem to matter how much firepower the Pelicans were missing.
When the Rockets made the Pelicans earn their scoring, they got the stops they needed, played with greater pace and energy and came back to take a lead into the fourth quarter. Once again, they just could not finish.