Calamities on and off the court have defined lost, luckless year
As he has so often this season, Rockets coach Stephen Silas on Wednesday spoke to his players about a variety of issues that had nothing to do with the game at hand but everything to do with their season.
Mostly, before the Rockets could get around to the business of playing the team with the NBA’s best record, Silas updated them on the condition of Sterling Brown, the guard who had been assaulted and injured in the early hours Monday in Miami. But Silas also touched on what had become a theme of the Rockets’ lost, luckless season spent dealing with almost every form of calamity and crisis that could destroy chances.
He said again to focus on controlling what they could in a season in which so much has been out of their control since before it even began, though by now even that is often prefaced with acknowledgment he has advised to “control the controllables” incredibly often.
At this point, the Rockets could understandably wish to avoid thoughts of what could be next. It is not difficult to imagine the thoughts that entered Silas’ mind after his phone rang shortly after sunrise in Miami on Monday.
The Rockets’ season had been
reduced to the hope for lottery luck long before they began Thursday a Spurs win away from being officially eliminated from the postseason, ending the NBA’s longest active playoff streak at eight years.
The latest issue had been the most serious and dangerous, with Brown badly hurt in a situation that could have been much worse and was immediately more frightening than the Rockets’ dizzying collection of sprained ankles and sore knees.
Yet as stunning as that was, with the added distraction and challenge that comes with guard Kevin Porter Jr. sidelined while in the NBA health and safety protocols after being out that night with Brown, the latest issues brought the potential to push an already broken season past the breaking point.
The Rockets did not show that against the Jazz on Wednesday, keeping the game tight for 20 minutes, though without ever seeming to have much of a chance before Utah got around to the expected blowout.
The Rockets, however, did not appear to be giving up on the balance of the season as much as simply being severely shorthanded and outmanned, almost reminiscent of the 20-game losing streak during which the rotation was filled out with G Leaguers and rookies.
Still, if ever there had been a team trained to deal with bad news, it would seem to be the Rockets.
“You really find out a lot about people in general in the world in adverse situations,” Silas said. “Obviously, we’ve been through as much adversity as anybody in the NBA. We’re learning a lot about all of us in this time.”
Silas has rarely pointed to the injury list but did mention it Wednesday after the Rockets went through a stretch making two of 32 3-pointers while playing without six regulars, including many of their most indispensable shooters.
Generally, he has resisted that urge, not only choosing to avoid anything that would be taken as making an excuse but following the coach’s standard thinking about messaging to the players still on the floor that they can still win. The whole “next man up” line tends to ignore that they are the “next man” for a reason.
When Silas gave rookie Armoni Brooks, signed three weeks earlier to a two-way G league contract, his first start Wednesday, the Rockets had their 34th lineup of the season. He was their 18th starter.
In the diminished goals of the season, the Rockets hoped to at least use the final weeks to evaluate how players mesh to help inform their offseason decisionmaking. With Porter out for all three games of this week’s stretch of contenders in a four-day stretch, even that modest goal is on hold given his importance to their hopes.
The injury list has grown to be so long that with Porter out and John Wall to participate in just one game of the Friday/Saturday backto-back against the Clippers and Nuggets, the Rockets will play a game with just two guards, Brooks and Avery Bradley, and no point guards. Evaluations might be on hold.
Still, there are 13 games left to play. As Silas spoke of the leadership of the Rockets’ core players throughout the year — Christian Wood and Wall, veterans who expected so much more from the season — he praised their ongoing determination even if — or perhaps especially because — it usually goes unrewarded.
“The one thing about both guys, at this point of the season, where we are, with our record and all of these things, they want to play,” Silas said. “They want to be out there. They want to help the team. They want to do what they can. They want to produce and try.
“Leading by example is first and foremost and doing things the right way. We’re not always doing things the right way — that’s for sure. But (we’re) building and learning and growing and all of those things that you have to do when you’re in the position we’re in.”