Daryl Morey believes older Rockets may be more prone to bad losses

Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey believes the relatively advanced age of his team may make them more prone to bad regular-season losses.

Houston GM Daryl Morey has an age-related theory on why his Rockets (39-20) appear more prone to losses this season against lesser opponents, such as the New York Knicks (19-42) on Monday night.

James Harden, Russell Westbrook, P.J. Tucker, Eric Gordon, and Jeff Green make up more than half of head coach Mike D’Antoni‘s current rotation, and they’re all 30 years old or older. Each has more than 10 years of experience playing professional basketball.

As Morey sees it, that might make them more vulnerable in the regular season to bouts of poor effort, such as Monday’s showing at Madison Square Garden or several others from earlier in the 2019-20 season.

Both Harden and Westbrook cited poor effort after Monday’s game, in which the Knicks out-rebounded the smaller Rockets by 31. After grabbing 13 rebounds and blocking a season-high three shots in Saturday’s win at Boston, Tucker had just five rebounds and no blocks in New York. Meanwhile, Harden tied his season low with just two boards.

The morning after, Morey explained his view:

The advantage we have, we have a team of guys all over the age of 30. We’re the oldest team in the league. The only thing they haven’t accomplished is winning the title. That’s the good thing. They’re very focused in big games.

I think, maybe one of those things that’s negative is on nights when they’re playing one of the bad teams. It’s a little bit hard when you’re over 30 to say, ‘I’m going to get up for this game, when I know it’s just a Monday night regular season game against a team in the lottery.’

I don’t want that to be an excuse. We’re frustrated by it. But the reality is, I think that’s what goes on.

The good news for the Rockets, as Morey alluded to in his interview, is that their record in “big games” against other good teams is excellent. After switching to a smaller lineup in late January, the Rockets defeated several 2020 playoff teams, including the Lakers, Jazz, Mavericks, and Celtics (twice). Three of those five impressive wins were on the road.

The Rockets also beat the Nuggets and 76ers by double digits during the first week of January. They defeated the Clippers on multiple occasions earlier in the season, as well as the Raptors on the road.

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“We have the best record in the league, along with the Bucks, against good teams,” Morey said Tuesday on First Things First. “We’ve beaten the Lakers on the road. We’ve beaten pretty much every good teams. We only lost to the Bucks [close] in game one.”

“But we’re not where the Bucks are. We’re not on pace for 70 wins. So what does that mean? All year long, we’ve been losing to bad teams.”

On paper, this would seem to be a positive indicator for Houston’s performance in the 2020 NBA playoffs, since there are no back-to-backs and every game inherently carries more intensity. However, the question is whether the negative standings impact from these bad losses in the regular season might create too much of a headwind in the playoffs.

The Rockets are currently in the No. 4 spot in the Western Conference standings, trailing both the Nuggets and Clippers by two games for the No. 2 or No. 3 seed. If they’re unable to catch either team, they would likely only have home-court advantage in one round of the playoffs, all while being slated to face the top-seeded Lakers in the second round.

If Morey’s theory holds true, his team should be quite motivated for their next game, which comes Thursday night when the Clippers visit Houston. With playoff seeding potentially on the line, tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. in a national TNT broadcast from Toyota Center.

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