Defense takes a step backward in loss
PORTLAND, Ore. — Even when the score was close, the game wasn't. Not the way the Rockets were playing.
They made their usual rally. They climbed out of another deep deficit to within a couple of buckets with much of the third quarter and all of the fourth to finish what they started.
Still, when the Rockets left the floor on Friday with a 125-111 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, it was clear that they had put up their worst performance of the season, with a sloppy, sometimes lethargic defense that was kindling for the Blazers to do whatever they pleased, whenever it was needed.
The Rockets had been determined that no matter what, they would be a hard-playing, toughminded team. They had been, even with losses in four of five games on the way to Portland. In Friday's first half, they weren't.
“Just didn't come ready to play,” Rockets guard Eric Gordon said. “Kind of let them do whatever. They played the way that they wanted to play. We just couldn't get in a real flow and rhythm. It's tough to win when you're not playing really great defense and they're in the flow, knocking down 3s, getting whatever they want. You put more pressure on yourself when you play like that.”
If that becomes an aberration, the exception that is inevitable in an 82-game season, or even a lesson that the Rockets can bring with them as they continue their early season slog through NBA cities with only rare stops at home, there would be something gained from a loss. But with an even greater test ahead Sunday in Phoenix to begin a road back-to-back, failing to be ready to start a game 10 days into the season was especially troubling.
“From the start of the game, we tried to get ourselves going but that's just something we lacked,” Rockets forward Jae'Sean Tate said. “It wasn't just the starting five. It was the team. Our identity is to bring energy, to be the enforcers. We didn't do that.”
The Trail Blazers have lit up other teams this season, putting 135 points on the Nuggets on Monday when they shot even better than Friday's 56.7 percent shooting, though against the Rockets, they did it with Damian Lillard sitting out with a strained calf. But the Rockets put up little resistance for much of the game, save the customary secondhalf rally, with the Blazers getting anywhere they wanted in their offense.
In the quest to repair last season's broken defense, and after some positive signs, especially in the halfcourt, the Rockets took a significant step backward. More than in any game, the frustration of that bled into the offense, with players forcing things to find their touch, from Jalen Green going 4 of 19 to Kevin Porter Jr. committing five turnovers.
“We should have been frustrated, especially in the first half,” Rockets coach Stephen Silas said. “It wasn't that we weren't playing hard; it was that we weren't doing what we were supposed to do. We're putting a lot of pressure on our offense because of our defense.
“Our attention to detail, our ball pressure, being into the ball, really trying to make it hard on them, we didn't do it in the first half.”
The game began with Anfernee Simons taking target practice. It soon became about Jusuf Nurkic bullying inside. Neither were supposed to move so freely, with the Rockets' gameplan to put greater pressure on Simons as he came around screens and to send some help inside on Nurkic.
“I think we didn't focus that much, and they are a good team,” said Rockets center Alperen Sengun, who returned after missing two games with an illness and had 14 points with 11 rebounds and three blocked shots. “We have to be better. We didn't play great. We have to (have) more focus.”
When they did to begin the second half, the Rockets made their run. Simons went from making seven 3s in the first half, matching his career high, to missing all four he attempted in the second half. But the need to mount longshot comebacks almost every night seemed to catch up with the Rockets because of the hole they again forced themselves to need to escape.
“As a team we weren't ready today and that's why we lost the game,” Tate said. “I thought it was a winnable game all the way down to the last couple minutes of the game. We just got to learn from it. We still have two to go on this road trip, try to get this bad taste from our mouths.”
At 1-5, they could use a win to gargle. But they had not felt after other losses as they did on Friday.
“I'm all about playing to win,” Gordon, who had season highs with 18 points and five assists, said. “You can live with some results, but it can't be doing the same thing, losing over and over the same way. I know we're a young team. But guys have been here a year or two. We've got to be better.”