Mike D’Antoni criticizes slumping Rockets for avoiding 3-pointers

In their fourth-straight loss, Houston shot only 32 3-pointers. That’s over 15 below their average since switching to a smaller lineup.

As head coach Mike D’Antoni sees it, the biggest problem for the Houston Rockets isn’t just that they’re missing 3-pointers. It’s that they’ve recently become reluctant to even take them.

In Sunday’s 126-106 loss to Orlando (box score), which represented the fourth straight defeat overall for the suddenly reeling Rockets (39-24), Houston shot just 9-of-32 on 3-pointers (28.1%) as a team.

That’s more than 12 shots below the team’s season-long average (44.4) in attempts, and over 15 shots below their average since the permanent switch to a smaller lineup on Jan. 31, which puts even more shooters on the floor. Since that game, the Rockets have averaged 47.4 attempts.

In postgame comments, D’Antoni said:

I think we’re second guessing ourselves a lot of times. There’s no swagger, we’re passing up threes, we’re driving in because we missed so many threes [Thursday]. Now everybody says drive, well, that’s what they did. They stay inside, and you’ve got 25 turnovers. That’s what most people don’t understand. We need to take the shots. We need to take the threes. Even if we miss it, so be it, but we need to play the way we play.

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The reference to Thursday was in regards to Houston’s historically bad shooting performance against the Clippers, when they made just 7-of-42 shots from 3-point range (16.7%). Of those seven makes, more than half came in the final six minutes, after the game had long been decided.

Since then, D’Antoni seems to believe that his team has become hesitant. At a different moment in Sunday’s postgame media session, he said his team was “questioning everything.” While he did not specify exactly what he meant by that comment, it certainly could be a reference to Houston’s offensive scheme, which is heavy on 3-point attempts.

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Per NBA.com data, the Rockets took only 11 “wide open” 3-pointers in their losses on Saturday and Sunday to the Hornets and Magic. Both totals are the lowest by the Rockets of any game in the 2019-20 season.

Collectively, the Rockets have shot below 30% on 3-pointers during the losing streak, which may be contributing to their hesitation. They’ve turned the ball over 38 times in their last two games, which D’Antoni seems to believe is a result of excessive drives inside the arc.

Though Houston ranks No. 2 in the NBA in offensive rating (113.4) for the overall season, they’re fallen to No. 26 (106.1) during the past week’s losing streak. In the last three games, they rank No. 27 (103.0).

It is worth noting that the Rockets were missing a pair of their more aggressive shooters Sunday, with Eric Gordon (knee) and Ben McLemore (gastroenteritis) each sidelined. Gordon and McLemore average 8.5 and 6.3 attempts per game, respectively, from 3-point range.

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The Rockets will attempt to get their groove back when they host Minnesota (19-44) on Tuesday at Toyota Center. On paper, Houston appears to be the better team — but three of the four losses in the team’s current four-game skid have been to opponents with losing records.

Tipoff between the Rockets and Timberwolves is set for 7:00 p.m. Central.