Rockets rebound from loss to OKC with easy win at Memphis.
Wood reinjures ankle, overshadowing bounce-back blowout
The Rockets found the remedy for their self-inflicted frustration of the night before, but that probably wasn’t what they were thinking about after Thursday’s 115-103 win at Memphis.
Center Christian Wood, who was playing in his fourth game since missing three with a sprained right ankle, turned the ankle again in the third quarter Thursday. He left the game in obvious pain, all but certain to miss more time.
How long he might be out will be determined with tests scheduled for Friday back in Houston.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Rockets coach Stephen Silas said when asked about the extent of the injury. “It didn’t look great. It was unfortunate. Yeah, I don’t know.”
The injury looked severe enough that Silas said it was difficult to regroup after, though the Rockets led by 22 when Rodion Kurucs made one of Wood’s free throws after Wood was helped from the floor and then put in a wheelchair.
“It was difficult for me,” Silas said. “I had to sit down and collect my thoughts and gather myself. As well as he has been playing, really just like a breakout season, really doing everything we need him to do, tonight he was blitzing pick-and-rolls and switching.
“Yeah, it sucks.”
Wood had made seven of 10 shots, scoring 17 points with seven rebounds in his 20 minutes when he stepped on the left foot of Grizzlies guard Ja Morant, turning his ankle badly.
Wood immediately went to the floor. He tried to stay in the game to take his free throws before he was convinced to leave the game.
Wood is averaging 23.3 points and 10.7 rebounds this season. In his three
games since returning from the first sprained ankle, he averaged 23.3 points in 28.4 minutes, making 71.1 percent of his shots.
Even without Wood, the Rockets rolled to a victory that was much more onesided than the final score indicated, playing as if they needed to spit out the taste from the offensive crash in Oklahoma City.
They did that and more. For the third time in the four-game road trip, the Rockets romped, leading by as many as 25 and clearing their bench early on the way to their seventh win in eight games. It was their second victory this season on the second night of a back-to-back.
A night after the Rockets made a season-worst 26.1 percent of their 3s, which followed their season-best 53.8 percent with a franchise-record 28 3-pointers, the Rockets played as if to demonstrate which version of themselves was the real deal.
When they began to clear the bench with 5:44 remaining, the Rockets had made 48.7 percent of their shots, 18 of 39 (46.2 percent) of their 3s.
John Wall led the Rockets with 22 points and eight rebounds. Eric Gordon had his third consecutive 20point game. Jae’Sean Tate had a career-high 19 points, often providing a surge when the Rockets needed it most.
The Rockets made 19 3-pointers, moving to 10-2 when making at least 13 from long range. They won their seventh consecutive game when Wall plays.
But after Wood’s injury, nothing seemed easy — or anywhere near as enjoyable.
Wood’s loss left a void, and the Grizzlies’ shift into a zone slowed all that had been going so well.
The Grizzlies went on a 15-3 run to close to within 77-64 before Danuel House Jr. finished the third quarter with a flurry of scoring. When House opened the fourth quarter with another 3-pointer, the Rockets were back up by 20.
With House, Sterling Brown and Ben McLemore each making 3s and Gordon mixing in three drives, the Rockets rebuilt their 25-point lead with 5:18 left.
A 16-2 garbage-time run brought Memphis within 110-99 with just under a minute left, but a Kurucs 3-pointer ended any hopes of a miracle comeback.