Smooth for Jazz
Awful shooting softens Utah’s already easy task
The Rockets take a 112-89 beating in a matchup of the teams with the NBA’s best and worst records.
The Rockets tried to measure up, to take on the toughest challenge the Jazz have to offer, as daunting a test as that would be. It went, as would be expected in the matchup of the severely shorthanded team with the league’s worst record against owners of the NBA’s best.
On one end, after Jazz defensive tower of strength Rudy Gobert blocked two Christian Wood shots, Wood went at him and tried to dunk over Gobert. He never got there but drew a foul, only to miss both attempts.
Moments later at the other end, Rockets rookie K.J. Martin swatted away a Gobert shot inside only to have Jordan Clarkson grab the rebound and easily drop in a two-footer to end the first half
The pattern of the night already had been established and would continue with the Rockets needing to be spectacular to accomplish anything while the Jazz just easily did whatever they wished, piling up a 36-point lead before finishing off a 112-89 pummeling of the Rockets on Wednesday night at Toyota Center.
Things got so out of hand, as the Jazz led by as much as 32 in the third quarter, that Rockets coach Stephen Silas began clearing what is left of his bench — with Kevin Porter Jr. going into the NBA health and safety protocols to join the usual six injured Rockets players on the shelf — to start the fourth quarter.
Things had begun to get out of hand at the end of the first half, when the Jazz surged to expand an eight-point lead to 61-43 in the three minutes on the way off the floor. But the game moved to complete blowout territory when the Rockets went from rarely putting in 3-pointers to never.
They missed their first 14 attempts from deep with the Jazz backing way off in many cases to offer a choice between launching more 3s or going at a defense packing the lane around Gobert inside.
From late in the first quarter to early in the fourth, the Rockets made 2 of 30 3s as the Jazz’s lead ballooned before bench-clearing time.
Gobert was soon through with 19 points and 18 rebounds in 26 minutes while Mike Conley Jr. had 13 assists with one turnover and Clarkson added 22 points.
John Wall led the Rockets with 21 points and six assists, but there was little shooting around him, with Jae’Sean Tate missing all nine of his 3-pointers and Armoni Brooks, who started in Porter’s spot, making only the final two 3-pointers of the nine he put up.
Even with some late buckets with the regulars long since through, the Rockets made just 35.4 percent of their shots, just 20.4 percent of their 3s.
Things had been much more difficult for the Rockets from the start, though they found a way to stay in the game for much of a half before the collapse that seemed coming all along.
The Rockets turned up their defensive intensity through the first half after they initially seemed shocked when the Jazz put in the toughest, most contested shots they put up. The Rockets got themselves back in the game, reducing a 17-point deficit to eight with three minutes left in the half.
Much of that came in the minutes Gobert and Conley were off the court. The Jazz outscored the Rockets by 29 points in the 14 first-half minutes they played. But the Rockets closed to within 49-41 with the Jazz going cold for four first-half minutes.
The Jazz, however, continued to run their offense, moving the ball to the sort of open 3s they could knock down and the Rockets could not. Joe Ingles put in his fourth 3-pointer of the first half in a 12-2 Jazz run to close the half. Even with that lone dry spell, the Jazz made 44 percent of their 3s in the half while the Rockets made just 6 of 27, 2 of 14 in the second quarter.
To have any chance, the Rockets would need a hot shooting night, given how easily the Jazz would put up their usual numbers. They would not come close to that, with their shooting going from bad to much, much worse.