In the very deep Western Conference, a bad week can be the difference between home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs and being on the outside looking in. Coming into Tuesday’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers, the Rockets were at fork in the road. While finally beating the Denver Nuggets was a nice feather in their cap, bad losses to the Pelicans and Kings loomed over that win and they would need another bounce back effort against the Los Angeles Clippers.
In the first quarter it looked like the Rockets might accomplish that, scoring 35 points shooting 15-of-23 from the floor and holding a Clippers team that featured a healthy Kawhi Leonard and James Harden to 29 points in the quarter. That would be the last quarter that the Rockets would score 30+ and the last quarter they would hold the Clippers under 30 points. From that moment on the Clippers shot 58-percent from the field in the remaining three quarters. They shot 54-percent from both the field and the three-point line where they shot 20-of-37 for the game. The Clips also went to the free-throw line 27 times, hitting 24 of those shots.
In contrast the Rockets shot 9-of-30 from the three-point line and 13-of-18 from the free-throw stripe. That was ultimately the difference in the game. The Rockets defensive effort was very poor, and their offense became very stagnant as they struggled to get stops and were unable to score in transition. The half-court offense lacked movement and spacing at times and seemed the only way to score was to allow KD or Sengun to play one-on-one.
Once again, the box score for Durant and Sengun was good. KD has 22 points on 8-of-15 shooting, but only had one assists and was a -15 on the floor. Sengun flirted with a triple double with 19 points, 11 rebounds, and 7 assists, but he matched KD with 3 turnovers and was a -9 on the floor. Jabari Smith Jr. and Amen Thompson both scored in double digits, but the defensive performance was not good enough to overcome Kawhi Leonard’s 41 points and James Harden’s 29 points to go along with his 6 assists.
Heading into the Christmas Day game against the Lakers, the Rockets have to look in the mirror and find some answers to the things that have been ailing them during this stretch. Kevin Durant downplayed the seriousness of the Rockets most recent stretch after Tuesday’s game against the Clips. “With the expectations on us, it feels like this is bigger than it really is. Of course, we want to win every game… we just keep grinding and we might win 5 or 6 or 7 in a row… The sense of urgency is there but we don’t want to feel like this is too big for us to control.
He isn’t wrong, it’s not the end of the world and there is a lot of basketball left to play. However, he’s also right that this team has expectations, coming of a 52-win season and finishing in the two-seed last season before acquiring arguably the greatest scorer of all-time. It comes with the territory. Hopefully the Rockets can get back on track defensively against the Lakers and salvage what has to this point been a frustrating and disappointing road trip for everyone from the team to the fans. As always, we will be covering every angle for you, right here on TDS.