D’ANTONI READY TO LEAD ROCKETS VS. UTAH
D’Antoni inserts healthy reminder that all foes tough
For all the suffering the final 24 hours of the regular season might have induced for those wishing for a more favorable playoff road for the Rockets, Mike D’Antoni could not bring himself to feel the same way. He had suffered enough.
The coach also reminded himself that as unappealing as a firstround matchup against the Utah Jazz would be, with the Golden State Warriors expected in the second round, any opponent the Rockets would have faced would have brought reasons to stay up at night.
D’Antoni, however, was hospi
talized for five days to be treated for an intestinal flu. He was unable to even watch the Rockets’ victory last Friday over the New York Knicks. He went through batteries of tests to diagnose the illness. He endured symptoms he opted not to entirely share but were severe and agonizing.
“I’ve been in basketball as a player or a coach for about 60 years; I’ve never missed a practice or a game because of illness,” D’Antoni said. “I’ve done it because of injury. This was a tough one. I couldn’t get out of bed for a couple days at least. Had a bug, had a virus. At a certain point, ‘Either kill me or get me well. I’d be happy with either.’ ”
D’Antoni was released Tuesday and returned to Toyota Center on Thursday saying he was 100 percent.
“I wanted to be with the team,” D’Antoni said. “You hate that. I didn’t mind it so much the first two games. That third game, I hated to miss that.
“I let it run its course. I’m good.”
Preparing for Utah could test his constitution. The Rockets and Jazz split their four games this season, with each winning once in blowouts. Beyond the evidence from those four games, the series will pit the NBA’s No. 2 offense against the No. 2 defense. Even since the All-Star break, when the Rockets had the second-rated defense in the NBA, the Jazz were the team in front of them.
The lesson of the season, with the final night bringing chances for the Rockets to have opened with any of four opponents, was that there were no good options.
“You don’t want to ever play anybody,” D’Antoni said. “Anybody you play, you hate it because they’re a really good team, especially in the West. Our total focus is Utah, and we know what a good team and obviously great coach and some great players. It’ll be tough. But I could substitute that name for a lot of other teams in the West and it would be the same thing. No matter who you get it’s ‘Oh no, not that team,’ no matter who it is.”
The Rockets could have avoided the Jazz in the first round had they finished off the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday before the Portland Trail Blazers won on a buzzer-beater in Los Angeles, or had the Blazers or Denver Nuggets not completed substantial comebacks of their own on Wednesday.
“I do think we’re in a great place,” D’Antoni said. “I think since the All-Star break we’re rolling. And I thought we played well enough in OKC to win the game. They beat us. That’s what happens when it comes down to all or nothing. Sometimes, the basketball gods go against you.”
Last season’s playoff series against the Jazz might not offer much of an indication of what is ahead. D’Antoni said the Jazz are a better team than they were when playing without point guard Ricky Rubio last season and with the addition of Kyle Korver.
Rockets guard Chris Paul dismissed this season’s results as “irrelevant.”
“Over the course of the season, there’s back-tobacks, there’s injuries,” Paul said. “You couldn’t tell me who played the third time we played Utah. You couldn’t. Everybody wants to say what the record was during the season. Who cares? It doesn’t matter.”
By the first games of the postseason, the final games of the regular season won’t matter either. The Rockets had said so often when chasing the second seed that how they were playing was more important than the opponent. If nothing else, it feels much better than their coach did a few days ago.
“This is something we worked for all year,” D’Antoni said. “We’re in a good position. We have to take advantage of it.
“Since the All-Star break, we did everything even better than we said we had to do. Have to give credit to Denver and Portland. They played really well. I think we’re in a great place. I think we’re playing well. I like our chances.”