The Los Angeles Clippers aren’t a young team. The ages of their starting lineup tonight were – 36, 31, 34, 28, 28. The key bench players are considerably older. They hadn’t played basketball since Saturday
the 6th. The Rockets last played Monday. The rest seemed to make the Rockets sluggish and careless, while it appeared to put a real spring into the step of James Harden and Kawhi Leonard.
Aside from the Rockets turning over the ball in unproductive* ways for much of the night, and being unable to assemble coherent offense for more than four minutes at a time, this was really a game of defensive strategy. I’d suggest we actually saw the good Clippers team that so many pundits predicted tonight. They were well rested, Kawhi was playing and not off planting trees or something, so this was basically an ideal unit for LAC, minus a couple of injuries (and the Rockets had their own).
Each team rolled out a defensive strategy to stymie the other. I’d argue they both worked out fairly well.
The Rockets choose to help very aggressively on Kawhi Leonard and James Harden. This lead to a huge night from spring chicken (28) Ivica Zubac who almost didn’t miss – 13/14 shooting, 7-11 from the line, for 32 highly efficient points. It lead to open three from Kris Dunn that he made at a decent rate. It did not lead to offensive explosions from Leonard and Harden. Leonard scored 24, but on 9-24 shooting. Harden notched 22pts on 7-18, and got worse as the game wore on. He had 7 assists, but also 4 turnovers as the Rockets attacked his dribble fairly often. AK (of preview fame) pointed out that Harden still hasn’t broken 30pts against the Rockets.
The Clippers on the other hand choose to send help from everywhere onto Kevin Durant, and also help to whomever was trying to initiate from the top of the three point line. The had the effect of slowing down both Durant, Sengun, and anyone else who wanted to drive or initiate from the top of the arc. They also used the old tried and true “Pack the paint, see if they can shoot.” In general, for most of the night, the Rockets couldn’t. The most open “kicks” on drive and kick were often not the shooter you’d want. Amen Thompson had a good game, but was 0-3 on wide open corner threes. He’d have been 8-9 with no threes, as he was dunking and doing “Amen Things” like hanging in midair, changing his shot, other times.
I’ve been critical of Thompson’s point guarding in other games. Not tonight. He was excellent in that regard, notching 8 assists to 1 turnover, and 9 rbs.
Sengun was the difference late, in particular a driving 360 degree spin and flip at the basket over Zubac, when Sengun seemed annoyed at what amounted to constant contact from Zubac on all Sengun attempts, pretty much. Alpie was the Rockets high scorer with 22 points on 9-22 shooting, and also 0-3 from three point range.
Kevin Durant, doubled, even triple, teamed all night had a rough outing, and missed shots you’d expect him to make. He was 5-14 with 5 turnovers, but most of the bad was in the first half, and most of the good in the second. How he only shot 3 FTs tonight is something only Mark Lindsay knows.
(To say this wasn’t quite the sort of refereeing effort that should send a referee to the Finals, would be a kindness to Mark Lindsay who called a painful, baffling, inconsistent game.)
Jabari Smith fouled out, and somehow neither Kris Dunn nor Ivica Zubac did. He did grab a lot of boards, and when wasn’t reverting to ducking out of shooting over opponents into bad drives, he played very well. His handle is much improved, but not improved enough to dribble around Kawhi Leonard.
The Rockets shooting was off, but eventually climbed to 35% from three after being in the low to mid 20s much of the game. Reed Sheppard continues to make threes at a rate that suggests more shots, but more shots have not appeared. This looked like a good game from Aaron Holiday, and in some ways it was, but there were also stretches where he single handedly shut off all possibility of good offense. The return of Tari Eason might hopefully mean a bit less of Aaron Holiday, who is very much overstretched in the role of primary initiator/scorer which he is sometimes handed. The Clippers targeted both Holiday and Sheppard on screens, but got the better of Holiday more often. Sheppard’s one real defensive gamble was one I approved of – an attempt to steal a floated pass that would have lead to an easy layup.
This game was close, but in the end, despite seemingly endless stoppages, timeouts and challenges in the last minute of the game, the Rockets eked it out.
Tonight marked the end of playback.tv and the Houston Rockets. Goodbye Playback, you were great while you lasted.
- I’d argue there ARE productive turnovers – basically attacks and passes that seemed like good ideas but were unlucky for some reason. Dribbling off your foot, or getting stripped of the ball driving into two defenders, then turning away, right into the hands of a trapping defensive helper, over and over, is not a productive turnover.
