Harden a reminder of missing deep threat
PHILADELPHIA — When James Harden took a seat, having tormented his former team enough with 4½ minutes still left and the 76ers up 21 points on Monday, he had dominated just enough to remind the Rockets of the good times, even by just hinting at those absurd, gaudy number he had once put up for them.
He had demonstrated the vast difference between what he left and what the Rockets have become while slogging through their rebuild.
More than that, it was safe to assume he passed the audition.
A good deal of basketball is to be played for Harden and the 76ers before he gets around to free agency decisions. (He has mentioned a possible return to Houston.) For now, it was enough for Harden to hit his former team with a third-quarter blast, scoring or setting up all 31 points the Sixers scored while he was on the floor in a run that began the Sixers’ roll past the Rockets, 123-104, on Monday.
But when his night was complete, he also had inadvertently demonstrated the Rockets’ problem in their second game without the last holdover from the Harden-led glory years, Eric Gordon.
When Harden was through, he had knocked down four 3-pointers.
And so had the Rockets.
The Rockets had done enough other things well enough to stay in the game. They turned the ball over as they customarily do, but they also made up for it with a typical assault of the offensive boards. They attacked the paint, matching the Sixers’ scoring inside. K.J. Martin warmed up for Saturday’s dunk contest.
But when the Sixers poured in 3s in the second half, the Rockets clanged rims until finally Jalen Green put in their first of the night with 3:43 left in the third quarter.
The Rockets made just 6 of 24 3-pointers, and two of those were when rookie two-way player Darius Days hit the first 3-pointers of his NBA career in the final minute when the benches had long since been cleared and fans were too busy rushing to beat traffic to notice.
The team that had so unapologetically piled up 3-point records when Harden led them for nine seasons, owning the math advantage that comes whenever three is more than two, saw the Sixers go 15 of 34 from deep, leaving the misfiring Rockets little chance to keep up.
“The way we’re kind of set up right now, especially without (Kevin Porter Jr.,) we don’t have much creation for drive-andkick 3s,” Rockets coach Stephen Silas said. “Our quality (of 3s) is just OK and obviously, we’re not making them. Guys are pressing. Guys are feeling pressure when it comes to shooting 3s, it seems, a little tight when it comes to shooting.
“Hopefully, we’ll get some confidence back when it comes to shooting but shot creation is the thing I’m most concerned with, and we have to do a better job of that.”
Porter had missed the Rockets’ past 16 games with a toe injury but is expected back after the All-Star break. He was the Rockets’ best catchand-shoot 3-point shooter threat (other than center Usman Garuba who has taken just 29 this season, including the one he hit on Monday). Porter made 42.2 percent of his catchand-shoot 3s before his injury Jan. 11 in Sacramento. But if he is to create those shots, he won’t also be taking them.
Gordon and Garrison Mathews won’t either, having been dealt at last week’s trade deadline. Last week’s acquisitions, Danny Green and Justin Holiday, who both have better 3-point shooting percentages in their careers than any Rockets rotation players, both requested and received their release.
That made the void left by Gordon’s departure particularly conspicuous.
“Right now, we’ve replaced Eric in the starting lineup with ( Jae’Sean) Tate,” Silas said. “That’s going to take a bunch of 3s and spacing away. As much as Tate adds with his defense and his smarts and his physicality and all the great things that he does, it will take a little bit of an adjustment for the group to find a way to get the other team out of the paint.
“We’re scoring a whole bunch of points in the paint. We’re getting in there and scoring a bunch. But we can’t be tight shooting the 3s. We got to get the ball up the floor quickly and get some early 3s in transition.”
The Rockets score well inside. Their 53.2 points in the paint per game is ninth most in the NBA. Much of that comes from their offensive rebounding and the 16.8 secondchance points they average. But offensive rebounds typically create good looks at 3-pointers with defenses out of position.
With the Rockets, however, the combination of sending so many players to the glass and not making a good percentage of the 3s they get takes away the potential benefit of getting more offensive rebounds and a greater percentage of rebounds on the offensive boards than any team in the league.
“We’re also going to have to get some 3s, if we’re going to offensive rebound, as a result of those kick-outs where the defense sucks in and we can kick out to open 3point shooters,” Silas said.
Green led the Rockets with 29 points, making a career-high 15 of 17 free throws. But he was 2 of 8 on 3s and is 2 of 17 on the first two games of the road trip. He is making 33.3 percent this season. Jabari Smith Jr. made 1 of 4 3-pointers.
He is making just 30.1 percent. With Gordon gone, there are no other starters expected to be range shooters.
“I think the shots weren’t going,” Green said. “I think the shots didn’t fall. We all got good looks. They weren’t dropping tonight.”
That has been a familiar problem. With shooters shipped out or walking out, it has gotten tougher to find a solution.