Tag: Mike D’Antoni

Game 5, Rockets vs. Lakers: How to watch and what to look for

“Obviously, it’s win or go home,” Russell Westbrook said of Game 5. “So you have to come out, and make sure you have that mindset.”

The Houston Rockets are down entering Saturday night’s Game 5 against the Los Angeles Lakers, but they aren’t out.

After three straight losses, the Rockets now trail their second-round playoff series by a 3-1 margin. Historically, out of more than 250 parallels, only 12 teams in NBA playoff history have overcome a 3-1 deficit to win a best-of-seven series. That said, one of those 12 happened just last week, when Denver crawled out of a 3-1 hole versus Utah.

Houston’s team leaders also have the benefit of personal experience to draw upon. Led by All-Star guard and MVP finalist James Harden, the Rockets overcame a 3-1 deficit in 2015 against the Los Angeles Clippers. Led by head coach Mike D’Antoni, the Phoenix Suns did it in 2006 against the Lakers. It’s difficult, but certainly not impossible.

“Obviously, it’s win or go home,” Russell Westbrook said after Thursday’s lethargic 110-100 loss in Game 4. “So you have to come out, and make sure you have that mindset. It’s one game at a time, especially here down in the bubble. It’s a different scenario than any other playoffs. We’ll be able to take our time and make sure we take advantage of our [smaller] size and our speed. We have to do it, if we want to win.”

It remains unclear if the Rockets will have the services of sixth man Danuel House Jr., who has missed the last two games courtesy of the NBA’s probe into an alleged breach of bubble protocol. D’Antoni said at Friday’s practice that the Rockets had “nothing new” on his status.

But even if House isn’t available, the Rockets aren’t using his situation as a crutch. “You know what, that’s a great excuse to trot out there,” said D’Antoni, who was asked if the bizarre situaton with House had contributed to his team’s apparent malaise. “We’re not doing that. No.”

With or without House, the primary focus for the Rockets is on fixing the “lack of spirit” that plagued them for most of Game 4.

“I think everybody knew that the energy we had throughout the game was unacceptable,” reserve guard Austin Rivers said. He continued:

They’ve got LeBron, probably the best player in basketball, by far, and then they’ve got Anthony Davis. You can’t play against that team and [have] those guys play harder than you, too. Then, you got no shot. If we’re going to beat them, we gotta play harder than them.

It’s going to take a lot of effort, and it’s not going to be perfect. We’re going to make mistakes. If we keep playing, we still believe we’re the better team. But we gotta go out there and prove that because, right now, they’ve been the better team.

“We have the recipe,” Rivers concluded. “Mike’s done a great job with that. It seems everybody right now is on the same page.”

Veteran forward P.J. Tucker, long known as a vocal leader, said he wasn’t even interested in watching film of Game 4. His comments:

I’m not even going to look at that game last night. That was one of those games you can flush. That wasn’t us. That’s not how we play.

It’s all about us. We’re beating ourselves and we know it.

“If our best shot’s not good enough, so be it,” D’Antoni said. “We have not given them, in three losses, our best shot. We need to get back to that.”

In Houston’s lone series win to date (Game 1), they broke even with the Lakers in rebounding, 41-41. In Thursday’s Game 4, they were outrebounded by a comical 52-26 discrepancy. Tucker and Robert Covington, who start in the frontcourt, had just three rebounds each.

Besides playing harder, the biggest tactical priority for the Rockets would seem to be getting their high-powered offense back on track. Houston scored just 41 points in the first half of Game 4, and Harden made only two field goals in the entire game. For the NBA’s No. 2 team in per-game scoring in the regular season, it was clearly a very bad night.

“You make adjustments, and then tomorrow, we’ve got to go execute,” said Rivers, who added that his team would make changes on offense.

D’Antoni said that Harden is usually making the right decisions out of traps and double-teams by the Lakers. However, Houston’s coach did note that there were some situations in which the Rockets would like Harden to be “a little bit more selfish” on offense.

In the grand scheme, having to successfully implement those changes for three straight games might sound overwhelming. It’s a lot to ask against the Lakers, who had the best record in the Western Conference all season (52-19) and were nearly 10 games better than the Rockets (44-28).

But from Houston’s perspective, they’re trying to simplify. They’re not interested in discussing Game 6, let alone a Game 7. For D’Antoni and the Rockets — clichéd as it may be — it’s one game, and one possession, at a time. “We’ve got one game,” D’Antoni said of the team’s approach. “It’s a one-game series. We’ve got to play to one game.”

Saturday’s Game 5 between the Rockets and Lakers tips off at 7:00 p.m. Central, with a national TV broadcast on ESPN. If the Rockets win, Game 6 would take place on Monday night. If Houston loses, its season ends in the second round of the playoffs for a second straight year.

[lawrence-related id=38094,38081]