Bid for post-break push to receive a boost
Harden, Westbrook like where team is headed while sitting 5th in West
CHICAGO — James Harden and Russell Westbrook spoke with their customary, familiar confidence about the final stretch run of the season. Westbrook described the Rockets as “happy” with where they are going. Harden cited the “championship” goal as far more realistic than a far-off fantasy.
There was a sense that they had made a course correction with a lineup change they could embrace and potential they believed they had displayed.
They reached the AllStar break with a one-game winning streak. It was a fine win, running away from the Celtics in the fourth quarter much as they had against the Lakers a week earlier. If not for a Bojan Bogdanovic 3-pointer from nearly 30 feet at the buzzer in the loss to the Jazz, the Rockets would have reached the break with three wins in four games after the trade deadline, with the only loss coming in Phoenix hours after the win in Los Angeles and without Westbrook.
Still, for all the good feelings gained with a couple of
uplifting wins, the Rockets begin play against the Warriors on Thursday in fifth place in the Western Conference. They are just 3½ games out of second, but there is clearly work to do.
“It’s been great,” Westbrook said. “We’re moving in the right direction. I’m happy where we are. I’m happy where we’re headed.”
The Rockets have typically taken off after the break. In Mike D’Antoni’s first three seasons as Rockets coach, theys won 70.1 percent of their games before the break then got on a roll, winning 74.6 of their games the rest of the way. That included the 65-win season when, with nothing on the line, the Rockets eased up and rested players in April.
This season, the Rockets won eight of their past 12 games after a four-game losing streak, with Harden missing one of the losses, Westbrook two. Eric Gordon played just eight minutes in the three games before the break, including two losses, because of a sore knee, with the expectation that he will be back on Thursday.
“We’ve made some strides,” Harden said. “We just haven’t been healthy. Getting our guys back, getting Eric back healthy and make this last push.”
At 34-20, the Rockets are ahead of their pace last season, when they reached the break at 32-22 and finished 53-29. When asked if the Rockets have a similar run in them, D’Antoni said, “We better.”
“I think they feel that (they will),” D’Antoni said. “I would have loved to have won against Utah and we’d have been rolling a little bit more. But wins will take care of themselves if we play offensively, we get the right shots, defensively we keep improving, keep our energy up and keep battling. We’ll be all right.”
They initially will have to make those strides on the road. The Rockets have won just four of their past 11 road games and play 12 of their first 20 games after the break on the road, including games against the Jazz, Celtics, Lakers, Trail Blazers, Mavericks, Bucks, Pacers and 76ers.
If they can get through that in good shape, the Rockets could be in position to improve their seeding down the stretch, playing six of the final eight games at home. But it will again come down to whether they can put together a post-break run to measure up to last season’s when they won 13 of their last 19 road games.
Despite some positive signs in the first weeks of the full-time use of centerless lineups, much of the Rockets’ chances in the rest of the regular season and beyond will be about how well their lineups with no player taller than 6-8 Robert Covington will work.
The concept, with the Rockets spreading the floor with shooters offensively and switching everything defensively, was a frequent topic of conversation around the All-Star weekend. The Rockets, however, don’t seem to consider it much of a change, having played that way when Clint Capela was out of games for several seasons and having played better this season with lineups that did not include the starting center they dealt to the Hawks.
The Rockets are 12-3 in games played without Capela this season, but they have often said even after dealing the only center that had played regularly that they don’t consider the revised lineup to be much of a change in strategy or tactics.
“See, internally, we don’t think it’s small ball,” Westbrook said. “We just play our personnel and go compete. That’s it.”
If nothing else, the lineup change, addition of Covington and a few encouraging wins have provided a jolt. With it comes a renewed sense of possibilities.
“A championship and we’re working on that,” Harden said of the goal. “Obviously, it’s not easy. I think in the second half after the break we’re confident as a group to be able to make our push.”