All of us have a player we like more than others on the team. All of us probably have a player we don’t like as much on the team. Tonight’s game pretty much united both, as with the exception of the deep bench, and a provision “decent showing” everyone on the Rockets was fairly dismal. It was a dismal loss, coming back to back on a another dismal loss.
You might look at Kevin Durant’s 31pt 11-21 shooting night and conclude he had a good outing. He didn’t. It wasn’t that he lacked effort, and didn’t make
the typically very difficult looks he often gets, he did for the most part. He also had 6 liveball turnovers (and a couple of bad plays that weren’t ruled as turn overs but sort of were) to one assist. I’m not a great turnover worrier, but these were just back breaking, progress killers. They were almost all of the “pressing to make a pass, to get things done” sorts, but that pass rarely seemed to connect with anyone but a Hornet. Durant and Amen Thompson the Rockets recorded 12 of their 18 turnovers.
Charlotte scored 17pts off those turnovers. The Hornets have been, contrary to expectation, rather good lately. They’re 9-1 in their last 10 games, compared to the Rockets 6-4. Since getting a taste of success, the Hornets have seemed hungry for more, and are playing hard. Playing with much more energy tonight than the Rockets, anyway. The Rockets were playing back to back, and the Hornets had rested three days, but if a team fancies itself as one that might go far in the playoffs, that excuse just doesn’t play. The Hornets themselve had 20 turnovers, but it didn’t hurt them as much, it seems. About midway through the third quarter it was clear to me that the Rockets flaccid offense wasn’t going to get the job done.
You might look at Kevin Durant’s night as a good one, turnovers aside. Well, then, that is arguably worse, because earlier in the season the Rockets would generally win games where Durant had a good offensive night. Tonight, despite that, it wasn’t close. The ten point margin was due to the deep bench crew, lead by Uncle Jeff, narrowing the gap, and forcing the Hornets to play their starters late. While that was the most enjoyable Rockets stretch of the game, the outcome never seemed in the balance.
Every Rocket starter besides Jabari Smith Jr, had a pretty bad game. Jabari might have bad nights, but I will say I rarely can fault his effort. I suppose Josh Okogie didn’t, but after scoring the opening five points for the Rockets, went on to score one point more all evening. Amen was 3-7 with 7ast against 5 To. Sengun was 3-11, but with 9 boards and 5 assists. Right now, though, we’re seeing offenses call up Sengun in pick and roll actions, and then use a guard or small forward to beat him to the rim. If help comes at the rim, the pass goes to the corner, over and over. Or it doesn’t come, and it’s an easy basket. Meanwhile, on offense, I counted very few moments when Sengun didn’t have four defenders around him in the paint.
The Rockets, despite having less energy than the Hornets tonight, did try. They were all clearly trying. But the most recent Spurs game saw the move of attacking Sengun, and teams that are awake, and the Hornets and Boston are in that group, have been doing it, too. (Hat tip to AK.)
What I’m seeing is a team with no answers on defense, or offense, other than, you guessed it, try harder. That’s an answer that can work sometimes, but it’s also exhausting if that’s a coach’s sole response to adversity.
If the defense is lacking answers, though, the offense doesn’t even know the questions. The Rockets totaled fewer than 200 points in two nights. Their opponents, in those two nights, did not score more than the average for NBA teams, and below their own season average. The Rockets weren’t close to winning either one, because the offense, when it loses the rebounding battle, as it did the last two nights, shows just how weak and fundamentally outmoded it is. Over the past two nights the Rockets, who trail only the Sacramento Kings in number of 3pt shots attempted, shot around 40 fewer three point attempts.
Let’s look at KD’s night one more time through the three point lens. He went 3-4. That’s nice, but the volume is nothing much. That means, though, he shot 8-17 from two, and that’s just not efficient enough to justify that many shots for two points. Neither is Sengun going 3-11. Jabari Smith’s 6-9 from two is fine, but unusual. Simply said, to compete with that high a three point attempt margin against them, the team has to do something else exceptionally well. Score from two point range. Shooting a ton of free throws well. Having the sort of massive rebounding edges the Rockets enjoyed early on, (once again, opponents have adjusted to this by devoting the same amount of effort to the boards, to blunt that edge). The Rockets had none of these.
Bluntly, the Rockets do not run an offensive system in the sense of players knowing what to do and when to do it. Watch their organization on offense, and their lack of reaction to what teammates are doing. Nobody seems to know what actions they should run with what teammates, or what they should be doing except “spacing” around the arc for an offense that hardly shoots any threes by modern standards. I could go on, but simply put, the offense barely exists, and what does exist is outmoded and inadequate.
The average number of points scored in an NBA game this season is around 114. The Rockets lost decisively not breaking 100 points in two games. Their opponents scored fewer than average points, and yet the Rockets had no viable chance of winning either game.
The answer isn’t more defense when the team holds an opponent to under NBA average points. How much additional effort would equalize 40 fewer three point attempts in two nights?
The schedule features OKC in OKC on Saturday. I don’t see things improving immediately.
