Brown’s assault takes toll on team
Sunday night attack on guard/forward adds to squad’s emotional burden
Shortly after Rockets guard/forward Sterling Brown was assaulted in Miami, Houston lost to the Heat in a game that seemed of little consequence compared to Brown’s attack, which occurred less than 24 hours before the teams took the court Monday night at AmericanAirlines Arena.
Brown’s assault was another emotional burden to an already beleaguered Rockets squad beset this season by injuries, a volatile superstar, trade disruptions and a persistent lack of on-court success.
“Everybody knew coming into the season with any team there’s going to be a lot of distractions, a
lot of difficult things that was going on outside of basketball,” guard John Wall said. “We have people still getting killed by police and dealing with death and dealing with our own personal issues and then dealing with COVID still. It’s a difficult year for everybody. But for us especially, we’ve had so many injuries not knowing who’s gonna be in the rotation, who’s going to start each night, who’s gonna play.
“But one thing: We keep fighting. We keep believing in our coach, believing in our teammates. We believe everything that we work hard to be good at every night, even though the season’s not going the way we wanted it to, we still go out there and try to make an effort for it.”
Brown, who has missed the last five games with left knee soreness, was jumped by multiple attackers Sunday night after the Rockets arrived in Miami from Orlando, where they won earlier. He sustained lacerations on his face but is expected to make a full recovery from the injuries, the Rockets said.
Brown, who is back in Houston, was the victim of an incident in 2018 with the Milwaukee police in which he was tackled and tased in a confrontation over a parking violation. In November 2020, he settled a civil suit for $750,000 and an admission of guilt. He was also part of an NBA delegation that met wth the Pope last year to discuss social justice issues and efforts to address inequality.
Speaking after the 113-91 loss to Miami, Wall and center Christian Wood declined to comment specifically on the incident with Brown. But both acknowledged the cumulative toll the events of the season — both inside and outside the NBA hemisphere — have taken.
“It’s always something,” Wood said. “It’s been a long, trying season. So you just have to stay positive and keep your head up, control what you can control.”
For the first 24 minutes of Monday’s game, it looked like maybe the Rockets were unaffected and back on track as they went into halftime up 55-54 on the Heat. Ultimately, the Rockets squandered an opportunity to string together back-toback wins for the first time in 11 weeks ( Jan. 30 and Feb. 1).
Rockets coach Stephen Silas said the emotionally taxing day might have played a role in the sluggish stretches of play that bookended the game.
“Maybe at the beginning, probably at the beginning, but we snapped out of it,” he said. “So maybe the emotion of the day caught up to us toward the end where guys were just — I think we looked tired toward the end of the game. … Maybe some of it is the travel back-toback and all of that and the emotion of kind of what’s been going on with the group.”
The Rockets enter the final month of the season as owners of one of the worst records in the NBA (15-43). If there’s one thing they have learned, however, it’s how to move forward in times of adversity.
“We just have to come together and stay together,” Wood said.