Different picture
Golden State’s missing stars taking shine off anticipated game
No one expected this when those summer lists highlighting the featured games of the upcoming season made the rounds.
The first meeting of the Rockets and Warriors since their latest playoff series was certain to be mentioned amid the usual reunion games and clashes of presumed contenders. No caveats about what could change — or has changed — were mentioned.
As much as the Warriors have owned the postseason showdowns, ending four of the past five Rockets seasons, the regularseason meetings have nearly always provided great theater filled with signature stars and compelling storylines.
Then there is this. The struggling and shaky Rockets meet the battered and unrecognizable Warriors on Wednesday at Toyota Center.
It had reached the point that
when asked if the Rockets would prefer to have the usual Warriors in town, Rockets forward P.J. Tucker said, “I don’t really care. We’re 4-3. I want us to be there.”
The Rockets so far bear only a slight resemblance. The Warriors don’t even have that. In Golden State’s past two games, not one player to take the court was part of last season’s playoff series.
Klay Thompson is presumed out for the season after injuring his knee in the NBA Finals. Stephen Curry is not expected to return until February after breaking his hand last week and likely will miss at least the first two meetings with the Rockets. Draymond Green and Kevon Looney are out. Kevin Durant is sitting out the season in Brooklyn. Andre Iguodala is waiting to be freed from the Grizzlies’ rebuilding project. Even the thunderstorms that have so often greeted the Warriors’ arrival are not expected until they have moved on.
The Warriors’ life-afterdeath lineup on Monday, with D’Angelo Russell out (he is listed as questionable for Wednesday), listed three rookie starters, including second-round pick Eric Paschall, who has been the season’s bright spot. Paschall scored 34 points as Golden State earned its first win in its new Chase Center home against Portland.
The Rockets, however, did not have the luxury of concerning themselves with the Warriors’ issues. Even if things had been going as expected, the Rockets likely would not have felt much sympathy for the team that had been to five consecutive Finals, won three and might have been the roadblock to a Rockets championship.
“We’re not worried about Memphis or the Warriors or any other team,” Rockets guard James Harden said. “We’re worried about ourselves.”
Facing a reasonable facsimile of their frequent nemesis might have been a
way to generate the sort of consistent intensity that has been lacking. There have been instances when recent regular-season showdowns have seemed to propel the Rockets to strong stretches. Yet, after a much needed, if far from satisfying, win in Memphis, the Rockets were more interested in selfexamination than in playing their part in the usual Rockets-Warriors spectacle.
Asked if a meeting with a full-strength version of the
Warriors could help get the Rockets going, Harden could not consider that.
“We have to focus on ourselves first,” he said.
It had been that sort of start of the season, with the win in Memphis coming too soon after the ignominy of the disaster in Miami to imagine how the meeting with the Warriors was presumed to be a showdown of contenders and for so many recent seasons had been.
“A win is a win in this league,” Tucker said. “Played harder. But still, a long, long way to go. We had enough to win. We’ll take it.”
Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni had refused to diminish the narrow home wins against the Pelicans and Thunder, both playing the second half of back-to-backs and with New Orleans shorthanded. By Monday in Memphis, however, he expected more.
“We’re better than this,” D’Antoni said after the 107-100 win. “We have higher aspirations than the way we’re playing right now. We’re not playing great now. That’s the bottom line. It’s not good enough. But I know our guys. Our guys will rally, and they’ll get it together, but it needs to be done sooner than later.”
That was his message in Miami when he said the Rockets are only in trouble so early in the season if they fail to generate the urgency as if they are in trouble. That’s a theme repeated at Monday’s gameday meeting and video session and again after the victory.
This came with the 29point loss — and 41-point deficit — in Miami still fresh, as if that was the bitter medicine to remedy what had been wrong all along.
“You can’t throw away that,” D’Antoni said. “We got bruised. We got smacked in the mouth pretty good. It should leave a mark. I keep telling them, if we think it is a big deal, we’re not in trouble. We’re fine. There’s so many games left, and we’ve got some things to get better (at), legs to get in shape. It’s a big deal. It’s got to hurt.”
The Rockets did accomplish the “hurt” part of the plan. They could not pretend the win that followed or their improvement were great accomplishments. Nor will they be able to fool themselves into believing the Warriors who will play in Toyota Center have much in common with the team they faced last spring.