Lack of execution in fourth leads to painful loss in winnable game
The Rockets, having been in so few games to be decided in the final minutes, had not gotten around to learning how to win them.
They did plenty to get there. They turned the game around in the third quarter. They rallied in the fourth. With 2½ minutes left, they were tied with the Timberwolves.
The Rockets managed just one shot in the six possessions before the Timberwolves began draining the remaining seconds off a 114107 win Tuesday at Toyota Center, having hit Houston with a 12-2 run to send it to a fifth straight defeat.
No team had played fewer games with a five-point margin in the final five minutes. No team has won fewer. The Rockets had gone just 6-15 in those games, but few could have ended worse, with the possible exception of their first loss to the Timberwolves (19-44).
The Rockets (15-47) turned the ball over on four of five possessions after tying the game, mixing in only a Kevin Porter Jr. drive into traffic that had little chance of ending with a bucket.
The collapse was even worse with Karl-Anthony Towns on the bench, having fouled out with a game-high 31 points.
Kelly Olynyk would score a season-high 28 points with nine
rebounds with Christian Wood contributing 24 points with 18 rebounds, one shy of his careerhigh set in his previous game.
Jae’Sean Tate had 20 points in his match up with rookie of the year favorite Anthony Edwards, who scored eight of his 19 points down the stretch for Minnesota.
The loss, however, felt like a wasted opportunity.
The Rockets had turned the game around when their defense stepped up in the third quarter. They were blasted when it disappeared in the fourth.
The Rockets began the quarter fouling on six of seven possessions, failing to send the Timberwolves to the line only on the possession when Towns turned it over. That gave Minnesota a running start from a deficit that had reached six with three minutes left in the third quarter to take the lead three minutes into the fourth.
The Timberwolves scored on each of their next six possessions, entirely on layups, dunks or Towns buckets around the rim. Minnesota scored on 12 of 13 possessions to lead by seven with five minutes left. Finally, the Timberwolves came up empty with Edwards, who was just 1 of 8 on 3-pointers, missing from deep.
But Olynyk missed a pair of 3s. Avery Bradley missed a 12-footer. When Edwards finished on a break, the Timberwolves led by nine with 4:09 remaining.
The Rockets had a run in them. Porter sank a 3-pointer with 3:22 left for his first bucket of the game. Wood put in a rebound of his own missed shot. The Rockets had a 9-0 run to tie it.
Houston, however, rapidly self-destructed.
The Rockets’ consecutive games against the Timberwolves will be their last against a team with a losing record, but Minnesota did not look it. That could be because for weeks they have not.
They came into town 8-6 in games in which D’Angelo Russell and Towns both play. They had won four of their past six games. They had just swept games against the Utah Jazz, the owners of the NBA’s best record.
The Rockets remained shorthanded as ever with John Wall’s season likely over. With D.J. Augustin still out, Porter (10 points) is the Rockets’ only healthy point guard, but he struggled badly through the first half, missing all six of his shots, leading the bulk of the scoring for Houston’s frontcourt. They obliged with Wood, Olynyk and Tate combining for 36 points on 15-of-23 shooting. Wood ended the half with a 28-foot rainbow jumper that swished. But even that seemed to point to the Rockets’ great shortcoming.
While the Timberwolves made 8 of 20 3-pointers, the Rockets sank just 3 of 16, even with Wood’s buzzer-beater to bring the Rockets within 59-50.
The Rockets made up for that reasonably well, but that was with Edwards making just 4 of 12 shots, Russell 1 of 8. That did not seem likely to last.
The Rockets, however, found another way. They could not do much about their shooting, though it improved a tad.
They could turn up their defense just a bit and held the Timberwolves to 8-of-23 shooting in the third quarter and went from a 12-point deficit before Wood’s 3 to end the first half to a six-point lead with three minutes left before the fourth quarter.
Russell closed the quarter with a run to bring the Timberwolves to within one before the Rockets broke down, rallied and broke down again.