This wake-up call doesn’t have a snooze button
Mike D’Antoni was asked about a “wake-up call” during the first round of these playoffs.
The Rockets’ coach — who often answers serious questions with smooth laughter — immediately passed on the sincere query and turned it into a joke. Wake-up call? It was an obvious cliché, D’Antoni said, and he wasn’t into clichés.
He — and his 65-win team — are now. They defined the word during the disappointment of Game 2.
Utah 116-108 on Wednesday night at a silent, then electric, then depressed Toyota Center. A 1-1 tie in this suddenly tight Western Conference secondround series.
“We lulled into it and we
paid for it,” D’Antoni said.
A team that has everything to prove “lulled” into it?
These Rockets can be confusing and difficult to stand behind at the most perplexing times. In Game 2, they let themselves down again and played into the doubt that remains about the best regular-season team in franchise history.
Acting like the Western Conference finals are a given and guaranteed. Outhustled, outexecuted and outfought by a lesser, limited Jazz squad playing without its starting point guard.
“They kind of caught us off-guard a little bit,” said James Harden, who had a game-high 32 points but was 9-of-22 from the field and was bodied up by a physical Utah squad in Game 2.
Caught off-guard, when Jazz adjustments were coming? Like I said: Confusing, perplexing.
“They came out with unbelievable energy and they played harder than we did and we can’t let that happen,” Rockets forward Trevor Ariza said.
“They made adjustments, especially on the pick-and-roll,” veteran forward Luc Mbah A Moute said. “They were slipping a lot because they know that we switch. So that created a lot of confusion.”
The reigning NBA champion Golden State Warriors are rolling through the playoffs and up 2-0 against New Orleans in the second round. The Rockets have too often looked like the West’s second-best team this postseason, and have fulfilled one of D’Antoni’s other clichés by falling to the Jazz at home: A series doesn't start until one team wins on the road.
“These guys are good,” D’Antoni said. “We kept warning (our team) they were good. We saw (Wednesday) how good they are.”
At the start of Game 2, the energized Jazz again looked like the team that beat Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Carmelo Anthony and Oklahoma City. Joe Ingles drained three quick 3-pointers — the long-range artist somehow must have disappeared from the Rockets’ scouting report — while everyone from Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert to Donovan Mitchell and Royce O’Neale had easy, open looks in the paint.
D’Antoni turned to Gerald Green — who barely took the court in Game 1 — for a Game 2 spark, initially leaving veteran forward Ryan Anderson on the bench. A team that had yet to play a full four-quarter game in the playoffs struggled as the Jazz played like their season was on the line, and the Rockets were outpunched on their floor.
“We didn’t come out and they didn’t feel us. … It seemed like it took us at least a quarter to turn up the juice and we’re down 19 before we started doing it,” D’Antoni said.
Utah hit 63.6 percent (14-of-22) of its first-quarter shots, recorded 36 points in the period and took advantage of the Rockets’ gradual recognition that Game 2 had begun. A sleepy home crowd was as quiet and disinterested as the team it was supposed to be yelling for. When it hit 53-37 Jazz with 7:21 left in the first half — another Gobert dunk via a highlow attack; another D’Antoni timeout — the Rockets’ lack of intensity and emotion was evident.
“That, to me, was maybe the most important thing in the game,” Utah coach Quin Snyder. “To get off to a good start, play well.”
D’Antoni’s squad fell hard in Game 3 at Minnesota during a first-round series, forcing the coach to call out and challenge his 65-win team. A 50point quarter followed in Game 4, and even with lapses during the series, the NBA’s No. 1 seed was on to the next round.
Game 1 of this series was set up by Utah losing Ricky Rubio to injury and dealing with short rest after eliminating the Thunder. The Rockets fired away early, then coasted, even though they were outscored 57-46 by the Jazz during the final two quarters. Utah has won five of the eight periods during this series, and returns to the friendly comforts of alwaysinviting Salt Lake City.
Seventeen secondquarter points from Harden — who started attacking like an MVP — woke up the Rockets in Game 2. But the team’s offense was a limited two-man show bouncing between Clint Capela and The Beard, while Eric Gordon, Ariza, P.J. Tucker and Anderson combined for eight points on 3-of-13 shooting in the first half.
Anderson, who’s making almost $20 million this season, has yet to score in the series, which is another adjustment the Rockets must make for Game 3. The HardenCapela attack continued in the third quarter and a 19-point Utah advantage turned into a 71-69 Rockets lead.
“You know they’re going to come back,” Snyder said. “It’s just a question of how far and how quickly.”
The Jazz — tougher, wanting it more — held on, climbed ahead 80-79 after another open 3, and gained another edge when Harden picked up his fourth foul with 2:52 left in the third quarter. Ingles kept sinking 3s in the Rockets’ faces.
A team that thrives on long-range shots often passed them up and finished by shooting just 27 percent (10-of-37) from beyond the arc.
This series should belong to these Rockets. But we’re two games into the second round and D’Antoni’s team is acting like it can beat the Warriors and win the NBA Finals by flipping a switch every night.
“You got to try to avoid that by having the necessary energy, the necessary moxie to finish the game, and we did not do that,” D’Antoni said.
The light disappeared in Game 2. It's time for the real Rockets to play four, full quarters for two games in SLC.