With Beard on hand, team running free
James Harden walked by Mike D’Antoni just as the coach was answering another question about the NBA’s leading MVP candidate and the Rockets’ six-time All-Star.
A video game-like image of Harden’s face constantly bounced around on Toyota Center’s jumbotron 30 minutes before tipoff, as a cartoon Beard was bordered by a marketing slogan with an emphasis on “weird.”
And when the NBA’s thirdbest team ran onto the hardwood for a nationally televised matchup against one of the league’s most intriguing squads,
no one stood out as clearly as No. 13.
Singing along to music with booming bass. Requesting the ball, then calmly draining 3-pointers from the top of the key. Drawing the eyes of the early arrivals, even with Chris Paul and Karl-Anthony Towns warming up nearby.
Seven games without the franchise face felt like a long month. The game after the chaos in Los Angeles — on-court bullying, locker-room callouts — Harden returned at the perfect time for a team that had dropped eight of its last 13 contests and fallen five games behind the superpower Warriors.
It was Minnesota, fourth in the Western Conference and rising, on Thursday night. Golden State-Rockets Part III is Saturday evening, also on national TV.
With their leader and guide healed from a Grade 2 hamstring injury, it was time for the sliding Rockets — once owners of the best record in the league — to make a midseason stand.
“We’re OK up to now, and now we’ve got some hard games,” D’Antoni said before he matched up against Tom Thibodeau’s increasingly impressive Timberwolves. “And if we want to have a great season, those are the victories you’ve got to have, especially at home.”
Even with Harden hitting only three of his 15 field-goal attempts in 25 minutes, the Rockets recorded the first win, firing past Minnesota 116-98 and receiving a game-high 30 points from Eric Gordon.
“The other team is looking at him, and that’s James Harden,” D’Antoni said. “It’s not like, ‘We don’t have to worry about him.’ They’ve got to worry about him. He’s going to be a positive, no matter what.”
Difference maker
There was some weird talk that these Rockets would be fine without Harden. They now had enough other names. D’Antoni’s system, Gerald Green’s brief out-of-body experience, and increased roster depth had created a different team that could now survive without The Beard. Not really. Sure, the Rockets went 4-3 without the league’s leading scorer (32.3 average points) and a two-time MVP runner-up who currently ranks third in assists (9.1). But they dropped two games they’d normally win (to Detroit and the inhospitable Clippers), and their scorching early-season mark of 25-4 had become a recently sluggish 30-12 as Harden’s absence became more noticeable with each shorthanded night.
No one could touch the Rockets in November, even with Paul on the mend. Harden was that great and clearly playing the best overall ball of his nine-year career.
He returned on a minutes restriction Thursday. But the Rockets finished an uneven first quarter with a 26-17 lead. And even though it took Harden almost 20 game minutes to record his first points of 2018, he’d recorded four assists, two steals, two blocks and a rebound by the early second quarter, while the floor widened for Gordon and Luc Mbah a Moute.
Gordon was especially sharp, playing off Harden and Paul in D’Antoni’s small-ball, three-guard attack and scoring a teamhigh 14 points during the first half.
Harden hit just two of his initial eight attempts and was twice forced to leave the game before his normal time.
“He’s really happy about that,” said D’Antoni, who also joked that he was afraid Harden was going to intentionally bump into him.
With Trevor Ariza and Green suspended two games apiece because of the silliness in L.A., the Rockets needed as much from No. 13 as they could get with two of the West’s top four teams flying into town back-to-back.
Wolves came in hot
“(Wednesday) in practice we looked really good, because we finally had everybody together,” Harden said. “Once we get those guys back and we get our full roster back healthy, we’re going to get some momentum, especially going into the All-Star break.”
The Rockets were back to the fast life against an opponent that had won five of six prior to Thursday. Six players reached double figures in scoring, including 19 points, nine assists and six rebounds for Paul. By halftime, the Rockets had already recorded 63 points, running the court without two rotation names.
By the fourth quarter, Gordon was up to 25 points — the last three via a running, 50-foot bank shot at midcourt — and the Rockets’ lead had reached 19.
“We can be really good,” D’Antoni said. “It’s all in the locker room. We can do it. Now, whether we do it or not, that’s the test, and we’ll see.”
Harden was back, and D’Antoni’s team was running free.
There was nothing weird about that.