COVINGTON SUPERB.
Covington ties postseason career high with a 22-point outburst
Russell Westbrook had the headlines on Saturday night in his return to the Rockets’ lineup. In the meantime, Robert Covington had the points a rusty Westbrook typically contributes.
“Rob Covington had a big second half, and Jeff Green had a big second half,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said of a couple of his key role players.
Especially Covington, who tied his postseason career high with 22 points in the Rockets’ 114-80 thumping of the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 5 of the playoffs’ opening round in the bubble near Orlando, Fla.
“I just stayed in my rhythm, and I was being found in the right spots,” Covington said of his hot hand when the Rockets needed it most. “I just let it fly. The confidence has always been there; you just have to see a couple of shots go in.
“When I did, the basket just opened up even more. And as the game continued to go on, every shot that I shot felt good.”
The series continues on Monday with Game 6, and the Rockets are one win from advancing to the Western Conference semifinals by grabbing a 3-2 lead Saturday. In the weeks leading to the resumption of play in the bubble, a candid Covington said he wasn’t sure what to expect in Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We don’t know how this whole thing is going to go,” Covington said in early July. “This thing is unpredictable.”
Five games in Covington has an answer, at least personally: Swimmingly.
Covington (6-7, 209) made six of his 11 3-point attempts on Saturday, also a playoffs career high for the 29-year-old forward in his first season back with the Rockets. Houston signed him as an undrafted free agent out of Tennessee State in 2013 and reacquired him in February as part of a complex four-team trade for Clint Capela.
“Guys made shots, and ‘Cov’ had a big night from behind the arc,” said Rockets star guard James Harden, who scored a game-high 31 points in 28 minutes.
Covington’s 31 minutes were second among Rockets starters only to Eric Gordon’s 32 minutes in the blowout. The Rockets won the first two games of the series by double digits but dropped the next two before the league took a three-day hiatus from games following the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis.
Blake was shot seven times and survived, but is paralyzed from the waist down, his family has said.
“We talked about the last two days how we needed to get back to the way we played the first two games,” Covington said. “(Saturday) was a step in the right direction. We just put our foot on the gas and kept going, and that’s what we have to do.”
Covington added of the pause in games: “It was a chance for us to regroup and gather ourselves … we had to take a moment to reflect, and that’s what happened. … We came (back) together and we made significant strides.”
Covington scored a total of 18 points in the series’ first three games, but has scored twice as many (36) in the last two, sinking 10 3-pointers in that span.
He was happy about his hot hand, especially as Westbrook continues getting back into game shape (3 of 13 from the floor) after missing the first four postseason games with a strained quad muscle, but Covington was especially proud of the Rockets’ smothering defense that held the Thunder to 80 points and 31.5 percent shooting from the floor in a crucial Game 5.
“The main thing we wanted to get back to was showing that wall (on defense),” Covington said of the Rockets’ third quarter in particular, when they outscored the Thunder 37-18 in tucking away the stress-free victory. “We knew they were a team that likes to drive, and in order for us to be effective we have to help our guys out, and not leave them on an island. We were doing a good job of talking … and in the second half we really locked in.
“We really didn’t want to play around with them once we got the lead.”