Rockets fell apart late against Spurs
SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio Spurs are the boogeymen that haunt Mike D'Antoni's dreams. They are the team that stopped his Phoenix Suns three times in four years in the 2000s, and were the biggest roadblock keeping his “Seven Seconds or Less” teams with Steve Nash running the point from winning a championship.
“There's a lot of places I don't go near,” D'Antoni told reporters, referring to the AT&T Center prior to the start of this Western Conference semifinal series between the Spurs and his Houston Rockets. “Some bad memories here.”
With 2:33 remaining in the fourth quarter of Game 5 in a 22 series on Tuesday night, D'Antoni had a chance to change that for good. The Rockets held a 99-94 lead, courtesy of an Eric Gordon three-pointer. San Antonio's star, Kawhi Leonard, was hobbled, sitting on the bench for what turned out to be the remainder of the game with an ankle injury.
After Gordon's shot splashed through the net as the shot clock expired, D'Antoni wheeled around and punched the air with his fist. He could see the finish line, taste the victory that would give the Rockets control of the series, allowing them the chance to go back to Houston on Thursday and close out the Spurs.
If ever there was an opportunity for D'Antoni to put the curse of the Spurs behind him, this was it.
Instead, it turned into what just might be his most painful loss to San Antonio yet.
The Spurs closed that fivepoint gap in the final 2:33, sending the game to overtime. Without Leonard, San Antonio managed to hold off the Rockets, earning a 110-107 win that gave it a 3-2 lead in the series. It also, whether the Rockets would admit it or not, robbed Houston of what easily was its best chance to advance past the Spurs and make it to a second Western Conference finals in three seasons.
“It was hard fought,” said D'Antoni, doing his best to remain upbeat, after the game. “We played as hard as we could, and we had our chances to win. So be it.
“We have to have high energy for the next game in Houston, and try again.”
D'Antoni has had so many horror moments in San Antonio in the past, from Robert Horry hip-checking Steve Nash into the scorer's table in 2007, leading to Boris Diaw and Amar'e Stoudemire to leaving the bench and get suspended for the next game, to Tim Duncan hitting a game-tying three-pointer at the end of regulation in 2008. So it It was fitting that in this game, D'Antoni went deep into his bag of tricks, relying on his core beliefs of how the game should be played, as any time in his decade-plus coaching in the NBA.
With Nene out for the rest of the playoffs with a torn adductor muscle, robbing the Rockets of a physically imposing big who can score inside, D'Antoni could've expanded his rotation to include a player such as thirdyear forward Montrezl Harrell.
Instead, D'Antoni - who has never been one to play a lot of guys in the postseason - went the other way. He moved starting power forward Ryan Anderson to the bench, making him the backup center behind Clint Capela, and moved guard Eric Gordon into the starting lineup. The goal was to play his starting five, plus Anderson and guard Lou Williams off the bench, leaning into his core philosophies of spreading the floor and putting up threes.