Out of control
15-point lead, command of series vanish in flood of errant 3s, bad defense
SERIES TIED 2-2 • GAME 5: 5:30 P.M. WEDNESDAY AT LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLA. • TV/RADIO: ATTSW, TNT; 790 AM, 850 AM (SPANISH). 101.7 FM (SPANISH)
Rockets guard James Harden trudged off the floor, the 15-point lead the team had held reduced to a distant, haunting memory, the final minutes washed away in a torrent of missed 3-pointers and the 2-0 series lead held days ago seeming to be a mirage.
He considered the wreckage of Monday’s 117-114 Game 4 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder and how it had been built brick by brick and took a whack at a hand sanitizer station along the AdventHealth Arena court, the frustration as evident as how it all got away.
The damage had already been done. By then, no amount of sanitizer would have been enough to cleanse the mess the Rockets had made of things.
“We strayed away from (what had been working,) on both ends,” said Harden, whose team faces a first-round series now tied 2-2 heading in Wednesday’s Game 5. “We don’t score the basketball, we don’t get back defensively, they go on their run. So, it was a disaster on both ends.”
The Rockets had taken a spectacular stretch of hot shooting to the lead in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., and then eased up far too soon, inviting a Thunder bolt back into the game.
Once threatened, the Rockets spent the day putting up 3-pointer after 3-pointer, never recapturing the sort of shooting run that had built the lead, never making the defensive stand, never showing an ability to stay in front of ballhandlers that would have been needed to escape with the win.
After making their first eight 3-pointers of the second half, the Rockets connected on just 3 of their next 23 before the two they hit in the final seconds when it was too late.
“A lot of them were good shots,’ said Harden after scoring 32 points with 15 assists, eight rebounds and four steals, becoming the first player ever with at least 30 points, 15 assists and five rebounds in a postseason loss. “Those are shots we normally take. Maybe there were some that we could have played off the catch and got a better shot. But I think for the most part we took some pretty good shots as far as catch-and-shoot.”
The Rockets’ 23 3-pointers were one shy of matching the NBA record for a playoff game. But they needed to attempt a postseason record 58, topping the 56 they attempted in Game 1.
Yet, they might have been able to survive that had they not let up late in the third quarter, helping to spark an Oklahoma City charge not unlike the Thunder’s push in the final minute of Game 3 on Saturday. With the Rockets leading by 13 after a P.J. Tucker 3-pointer, the Rockets’ ninth of the quarter, the Thunder needed just over 2½ minutes to tie the score.
“We needed better individual defensive efforts,” Eric Gordon said. “They really got it going and just tried to spread us out and go one-on-one. We scored enough. They just continued to keep scoring.”
They finished that run when Harden launched a long 3pointer with 5.5 seconds left on the clock, his second in a row
“We relaxed, they gained confidence, that’s what happened.” James Harden, on the Rockets losing a 15-point lead to the Thunder
put up from 30 feet, before the Rockets did not get back as Chris Paul rushed the Thunder to a Dennis Schroder 3 at the buzzer. When Schroder opened the fourth quarter with a driving finger roll, the Thunder led less than three minutes after they trailed by 13.
“We relaxed,” Harden said. “We relaxed, they gained confidence, that’s what happened.”
The Rockets still had chances to take the win late. They went up 108-107 with 100 seconds left after a Jeff Green jump hook in the lane. But after Paul quickly regained the lead with a midrange jumper, Harden missed from 12 feet and then turned the ball over in the backcourt.
Schroder finished a drive, giving the Thunder a 3-point lead. But the Rockets had a good look to tie, only to have their 3-point shooting betray them again when P.J. Tucker missed from the corner, forcing the Rockets to foul.
Facing the team that had been the NBA’s best in clutch situations, there was no way Schroder and Paul were going to let the Rockets back in the game with missed free throws.
The 3-pointers the Rockets put in on the way off the floor only reminded of what had gone so wrong after they had been seduced into relying on them after that stunning stretch when they had gone right.
“I thought we had our looks; we didn’t make them,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said of the final Thunder run to the win. “We turned the ball over a couple of times. I thought we had our chance to win. We just didn’t do it.”