Defense still issue of highest urgency
The losing streak drags on. The shooting remains frigid. The injuries have piled up.
The Rockets cannot help but notice. The challenge, amid all the others, is to somehow ignore all the realities hitting at once and believe none to be insurmountable. That could be the most difficult task of all.
“It’s a bump in the road, but it will always be next man up,” Rockets guard
John Wall said. “All we can do is go out there and play hard and give ourselves a chance. That’s all we’re doing right now, just giving ourselves a fight.”
The Rockets fought back for a fourth-quarter stretch against the Wizards on Monday, just as they had rallied briefly against the Knicks on Saturday. But as the losing streak reached a season-high six games heading into a meeting on Wednesday with Eastern Conference-leading Philadelphia, finding a way out with key players hurt has become increasingly difficult.
After falling on Monday with Christian Wood, Victor Oladipo, Eric Gordon and P.J. Tucker all out, that has to start with rebuilding confidence that things can turn around.
“It’s tough,” guard/forward David Nwaba said. “We know we’re a better team with everybody playing. It’s important for every man to step up when we do have guys out. Yeah, we’re a short crew right now. Guys just got to step up.
“Guys are still positive. Guys still have hope. Hopefully, we’ve got guys coming back. But I think we’re still there. I think we’re pretty positive for the most part.”
With that in mind, coach Stephen Silas said he would point out the shortcomings in the losing streak by contrasting them to when they were strengths, an exercise that if nothing else could demonstrate a way to turn things around.
The inability to shoot straight would seem difficult to correct in a video session. The Rockets are regularly getting the good shots they want for the players, among those who are left, they want taking them.
There is a sense they can find a way to reverse the defensive downturn. Ranked second defensively before the losing streak, the Rockets
have had the 22ndranked defense in their past six games.
“As far as the message to the team, it’s (about) staying with it, remembering the things that got us to the point we had won six in a row, seven out of eight, right before Christian got hurt,” Silas said. “Now, Christian is out, and we lost six in a row.
“So finding a way to kind of bottle that which we had prior to Christian’s injury with our energy, with our defensive mindset, I continue to say with our group it really is how we play defensively whether we’re in the game or not.”
As badly as the Rockets have been shooting — especially from beyond the 3point line, where they have had the worst shooting percentage in the NBA during their losing streak — they are convinced the solution to their struggles will be on defense.
Less clear is whether the poor shooting has led to the sudden struggles on defense or if defensive issues have slowed the offense, the sort of question struggling teams ask.
“We play a good defensive game against Miami, and we were right there,” Silas said. “We didn’t play a good defensive game (Monday), and we lost. It really is making sure we’re focused on the defensive end of the floor, not allowing the make or miss to affect our defensive play, which is the age-old question, the ageold issue in the NBA: Which leads to better?
“Is it good offense leads to good defense or good defense leads to good offense? Is it if you play good defense, does the offense matter or if you play good offense, does the defense matter? We can’t let one affect the other. That’s a little bit of what’s happening.”
In the Rockets’ case, the horrible shooting seems to have drained energy from the defense. Even shorthanded, the Rockets should have lineups able to defend far better than they did in the first two games of the road trip.
The shooting has been terrible, producing the two worst performances of the season on 3s in the past two games, with the Rockets hitting a season-low eight in each. The defensive slump has been more out of character. In a search for reason for hope, it also should be more within the Rockets’ abilities to correct.
“We’re obviously not shooting the ball well,” Silas said. “We haven’t shot the ball well, especially for the last three games. Part of that is affecting our defense.”
Teams throughout the NBA have dealt with widespread absences either from the health and safety protocols or the increase in the sort of day-to-day injuries that have hit the Rockets in addition to the longer-term injury to Wood.
For the Rockets, who were without three of their top four scorers and four of their top five players in minutes per game Monday, the first goal on an off day was to avoid becoming too dejected to bounce back.
“That’s why I’m the leader of the team,” Wall said. “That’s why I have to keep these guys afloat. It’s something we deal with. A lot of teams might have to deal with it throughout the year. We can’t really control that. Me as a leader, … keep working with them, keep pushing them every day, and keep giving ourselves a chance to fight.
“That’s the most important thing and the easiest thing we can do. Just go out there and play hard every night.”