Winning the rebounding battle by ten usually points to a win. Wednesday night in Denver proved that basketball math can get weird in a hurry.<\/p>\n
The Houston Rockets outrebounded the Nuggets 60-50 at Ball Arena, controlling the glass on both ends and finishing with 16 offensive rebounds that created plenty of second-chance opportunities. Normally, that kind of dominance inside tilts a game heavily in Houston\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n
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Instead, the Rockets walked away with a 129-93 loss.<\/p>\n
The difference came down to efficiency and possessions.<\/p>\n
Denver punished Houston\u2019s mistakes all night, converting 15 Rockets turnovers into 18 points while pushing the tempo in transition. The Nuggets finished with a 24-12 edge in fast-break scoring, repeatedly turning live-ball turnovers into easy points before Houston\u2019s defense could get set.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the three-point line created an even bigger gap.<\/p>\n
Houston endured one of its coldest shooting nights of the season from deep, finishing 4-for-33 from three. Denver lived on the opposite end of that spectrum, drilling 17 of 32 attempts and stretching Houston\u2019s defense further and further out as the night progressed.<\/p>\n
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The free-throw line didn\u2019t help either. The Rockets went 5-for-14, leaving valuable points on the floor during stretches when the game was still within reach.<\/p>\n
Inside the arc, Houston actually held the advantage. The Rockets outscored Denver 58-42 in the paint, a sign that their interior offense still found success.<\/p>\n
But modern NBA games rarely hinge on one category.<\/p>\n
Rebounding gave Houston extra chances. Shooting and turnovers erased them just as quickly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Winning the rebounding battle by ten usually points to a win. Wednesday night in Denver proved that basketball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,301,194,302,1415],"class_list":["post-654015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-denver","tag-houston-rockets","tag-nuggets","tag-the-nuggets"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116214761302637753","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}