Life without D-Mo unexpectedly rosy
What’s crazier? The Rockets taking 44 3-pointers and beating the best team in the NBA at Oracle Arena or Mike D’Antoni’s recharged crew being 12-7 with Donatas Motiejunas still nowhere in sight? How about both. If you doubted whether James “Triple-Double” Harden and his new squad were for real, late Thursday by the Bay was all the proof you needed. And I mean late.
It was the Rockets, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, Twitter and Charles Barkley all staying up past 1 a.m. our time Friday. Then it was 132-127 road team in double overtime, with Curry stuck on the bench, Draymond Green obviously accidentally kicking The Beard in
the face and the Western Conference’s best earlyseason surprise impressing us again.
Yes, we’re barely at the quarter mark of a long, drawn-out season. Yeah, the magic of the playoffs is still 4½ months away.
But Harden kept playing the best basketball of his career. The ex-Pelicans (Ryan Anderson, Eric Gordon) combined for 52 points and nine made 3s. And the Rockets outfought, outshot and outexecuted the Durant-Curry monster, despite spending the majority of both overtimes avoiding the paint — and often any space inside the arc — like it was Dwight Howard’s Christmas party.
You know the NBA has changed when one of the greatest long-range shooters in league history keeps insisting the Rockets have to take it inside in crunch time — D’Antoni’s team never does — and a squad that literally lives and dies by the 3 ultimately outhoops a super team that features Klay Thompson, Curry and Durant.
Three-point artist turned TNT announcer Reggie Miller and conventional wisdom were wrong. D’Antoni’s Rockets were right. And no matter what happened in Denver’s altitude Friday night on a cruel back-to-back, there really is something to like about the 2016-17 Rockets.
A tip of the hat
Last season’s crew would have been shaky by the first quarter, in serious trouble at the half, wavering in the third and destroyed by the final period. Scratching out overtime on national TV against the dreaded Warriors? Surviving double OT and being the best team standing for one night? Yeah, no way.
So a tip of the hat to the owner, general manager and D’Antoni in early December. And the fact these Rockets are doing it all without Motiejunas fascinates me even more.
It became hard to keep track of how many “Just wait until D-Mo comes back” tweets I received the previous two seasons. But it was close to the number of free throws Howard sank last year.
And there was a point in time when I couldn’t check the pulse of the Twitterverse without being inundated with Motiejunas love.
I never really understood the connection.
Sure, D-Mo started 62 games during the peak season of the Harden-Howard experiment, averaging 12 points and 5.9 rebounds, while sometimes proving worthy of being the No. 20 overall pick of the 2011 draft. But he also didn’t clock a minute in the playoffs during the Rockets’ Western Conference finals season, has struggled to stay active since he came into the league and played 37 games in a frustrating 2015-16.
Four seasons and 214 games into a career that’s on pause once again, Motiejunas is a complementary piece, at best, and often more of a theoretical asset than a literal one.
Which makes the Rockets’ early-season success under D’Antoni even more impressive. The man who has fully unleashed The Beard has been publicly campaigning for D-Mo back in red for a while now.
But while Golden State had Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston and the NBA’s back-to-back MVPs on the same court, the Rockets silenced Golden State’s 12-game win streak with lesser names (outside of Harden) and Motiejunas receiving a four-year, $37 million offer sheet from the Brooklyn Nets.
Base decision on depth
Should the Rockets match as Brooklyn tries to steal D-Mo midseason?
Yes, if the deal doesn’t significantly limit future moves. Depth is huge in an 82-game season and even more critical during the playoffs. Motiejunas shot 36.8 percent beyond the arc during his best season in 2014-15, and he would see what Anderson and Gordon have been benefiting from in D’Antoni’s system: an open floor and clear looks at the rim.
Motiejunas also would have to gradually crack open a spot in the rotation, though. Sam Dekker and Montrezl Harrell are on the rise in their second years, while Anderson has finally locked down the stretch power forward spot.
Two years ago, it was wait until D-Mo returns. Now, the Rockets are on the verge of losing him at a weird time — loaded offer sheets normally arrive in July — and the NBA has barely taken notice.
D’Antoni’s team definitely can use Motiejunas. What if he’s the difference between the fourth and fifth seed in the West and homecourt advantage in the first round? But, right now, they’re also playing well enough to live without him.
That was unthinkable in October.