Rockets Fight off San Antonio’s Rally, Rebound to Finish off Spurs, 108-101
Glass Handlers. A Different Atmosphere. Home Sweet Home.
A stinger. Or so it seemed. Rudy Gay’s corner 3 late in the game in last night’s thriller gave San Antonio the edge. A lead, one that Houston once held comfortably at 17 points, for their biggest lead of the game, had vanquished. But the Rockets or the Beard didn’t panic. In case, you hadn’t noticed, James Harden has been “Bearding”, for some time now. And this time, he finally got some help. The Rockets got a much needed bounce-back win over the Spurs, 108-101, in front of a the home crowd at Toyota Center on Saturday night. After the Spurs took the edge 97-96, the Rockets ended the game on a 12-4 run to close out San Antonio, and got a win they really needed that improved them to 17-15 on the season. Houston manhandled San Antonio on the glass, which led to 2nd chance points for the Rockets. Many of those 2nd chance points were 3’s, as the Rockets were ironically outscored in the paint by 20, 52-32, despite having a dominant advantage on the glass. Just goes to show how much better the Rockets are when that 3-point shot is falling. When it is, they don’t need to score in the paint. Lobs to Clint Capela are fun to watch, but 3 will always be more than 2, and the more the better. Personally, I do wish they would drive it to the basket more, but when the 3 is falling, and they’re HEALTHY, the Rockets are pretty much unstoppable. James Harden had another MVP-caliber performance, with 39 points and 10 dimes on the night. Harden recorded his 6th straight game of scoring 30 or more points, for the first time in his career. A stat I consider mind-boggling, considering he’s averaging 32 for the season and 34.2 this month alone. The Beard is shooting 45.8% from the field, including a staggering 40.5% from beyond the arc in the month of December. Harden continues to do whatever it takes for his team to win games as the Rockets hope CP3 and (the never-talked about) James Ennis get healthy quickly, and return to action soon. After the game, when asked how he gets Harden to play at that MVP-caliber level, night after night, Houston’s Coach Mike D’Antoni replied, “You’ll have to ask him. I have no idea as to what he’s doing. He’s in a different atmosphere than I’ve ever seen.” The Beard continues to be in a zone, and the Rockets need him to remain in this “different atmosphere” of elite play if they want to continue gutting out wins like the one last night. Despite Chris Paul’s absence, other guys stepped up, and Houston finally won a game without their player/coach on the floor. And they stepped up big time. Despite being undercut early in the game on a play that should have been at least a flagrant foul, P.J. Tucker, the toughest player in the league, had a career high 16 rebounds and won the battle for the loose ball most of the night. The big fella, Clint Capela, brought big time help. Capela finished with 21 points, along with a career-high 23 boards, as he continues to prove he’s definitely worthy of being named an All-Star this season. The Rockets scored a meager 13 points in the 2nd quarter. They regrouped, and scored 43 in the 3rd quarter alone, after managing only 41 in the first half. Gerald Green (aka The Green Light) was on fire and score 12 of his 15 points in the third. Green went 4/4 from the promise land, and the unit as a whole was 9/13 from downtown in the 3rd quarter. The Rockets came out of halftime with a sense of urgency. This set the tone for the rest of the night, and despite San Antonio rallying to come back from a deficit, Houston managed to hold off the Spurs’ comeback attempt late in the game to stage their own rally. Yes. The Rockets are good enough to win close games in crunch-time without Chris Paul. They finally won their first game without their floor leader, as Houston improved to 1-5 when CP3 is not in the lineup. Eric Gordon looked a little better. He had 18 points on 7/20 from the floor, but only connected on 4/12 from deep. The Rockets will need him to be better if they want to get through the toughest part of the regular season unscathed. Houston managed to contain San Antonio. DeMar DeRozan had 28 points, but other than that no one was a real threat to Houston’s improved defense. They’ll have to keep up the intensity on defense and hope their shooting improves on offense, in order to barge through the most difficult stretch of the season, which is on the horizon. This was a solid start for a Rockets team about to enter the NBA’s version of murderer’s row. The good news: Houston’s won 10 of its last 11 games at home, and 3 of the next 4 are at Toyota Center. MVP chants were as loud as they’ve been all season, and Toyota Center will need to give these Rockets all the support they can get in order to get through this upcoming brutal stretch. Up next for the Rockets, the Oklahoma City Thunder come to Houston for a Christmas Day holiday bash. The Thunder are currently tied with Denver for the best record in the unforgiving West. Paul George is enjoying the best season of his career, and is currently on fire, coming off a 40 point-game, showing renewed confidence in his 2nd season since departing from Indiana. Oklahoma City also has the relentless juggernaut that is Russell Westbrook. The Thunder as a whole are playing some of the best defense in the entire league, and will bring a challenging test to a Rockets team that needs its shots to be falling if they want to give fans a Christmas present this Holiday season.