3-pointers: Takeaways from Rockets' Game 7 win over Thunder - Houston Chronicle

Takeaways from the Rockets' 104-102 win in Game 7 against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday night in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.:

The win theirs, the series that was tougher than necessary finally over and behind them, the Rockets could return to their soon-to-be nearly empty Grand Floridian resort on NBA’s Disney campus and exhale.

The weight that they carried, with expectations large and their aspirations larger, had been lifted.

Chris Paul, the star they had dealt, had been defeated before a loss to him could torment them. The pain of losing could-have, should-have-won games was gone.

They had lost five consecutive games when facing elimination before doing just enough to escape, winning on — of all things — a mid-range jumper and a last-second blocked shot.

As they move on to the second-round series against the Lakers that had been expected all along, they will be tired from all it took to advance but lighter without the weight they had carried.

They play the Western Conference’s team to beat, perhaps the championship favorites considering the Bucks’ struggles in the East. But the confidence was not diminished by the seven-game series and might even have been bolstered.

“It’s a tough task," Russell Westbrook said, “but I think we’re built for it.”

1. There is apparently a rule somewhere that nothing about James Harden and defense can be mentioned without first pointing out that he carries a different reputation.

Baseball will allow someone to steal home with an 8-0 lead before the Harden defense narrative is allowed to go unmentioned. If the guy ever stops a train, someone will ask about it by first pointing out that he never before jumped in front of a locomotive.

This is not even the first time in the bubble it has come up. When he shut down Giannis Antetokounmpo late in a seeding game win, Harden was asked as much about what people say as what he did.

The comparison between what is thought and what is real has gotten old in a large part because those that do pay attention have noticed the steady improvement, the low-post excellence and the active hands to be disruptive. Harden is not a complete defensive player, but he has obvious strengths.

The moment that changed everything Wednesday, however, spoke to a quality that remains overlooked even after letting go of silly assumptions leftover from the Vine days.

Harden does come up large late in games. Even in Game 6, with the game tied and less than two minutes remaining, Harden came over to defend Steven Adams at the rim, forcing a miss. Moments later, the Rockets had the lead.

They lost anyway, with so much going so wrong on the other end that one defensive stop in the closing minutes was quickly and understandably forgotten. But is does set up what would happen Wednesday night.

The Rockets led by one when Harden chose to close out to Lu Dort. He had spent the series stopping well short of Dort, not so much as raising a hand that might dissuade Dort from firing away. But Dort had scored 30 points, breaking Harden’s franchise record for scoring by a Thunder rookie in a playoff game.

As with the play on Adams, Harden was willing to risk a game-changing and a reputation-crushing foul, an enormous bet on himself. He closed to Dort, slid around him and swatted the 3-pointer. He also had the wherewithal to dodgeball his way around the ball when Dort grabbed the rebound and tried to fire the ball off Harden’s legs before going out of bounds.

On a night Harden shot horribly, he saved the game defensively.

His 4-of-15 shooting won’t do much for his reputation in elimination games. Had the shot he blocked instead gone in he would understandable have been roasted for falling so badly in another elimination game. His outstanding play in last season’s series against the Warriors, most while largely blind in one eye, did not change his reputation. These days, narratives don’t change in a loss. But his defensive stand came in a win.

There might be a rule requiring that all mentions of Harden’s defense require feigned shock. But at some point, pretending to not know how out of date that angle has become just sounds foolish.

It is also unnecessary when the story of him being so off offensively and coming up large defensively to finally stop Dort is better.

With that, a defensive stopper struggling badly with his shot shut down a high scorer from Arizona State, just as seemed possible one way or another all along.

2. For all the Rockets' issues along the way, the late-game stumbles that forced them to a Game 7, the trying, exhausting struggle to advance, there could be one way they could benefit from the effort.

They could be a better team than they were even when they built those leads earlier in the series.

They would be better if by having to go seven games, Russell Westbrook had time to get back up to speed. They got Eric Gordon going from deep at least for most one game. Robert Covington has continued to get better.

As long as James Harden’s issues Wednesday are an aberration (he was on pace for his top-scoring, best-shooting postseason of his career before Game 7,) the Rockets might have a chance to have the sort of varied offensive weapons they will need to beat the Lakers.

Much of that will be able Westbrook who was trying not just to come back from an injury, but to come back after playing just four games in five months. He was in preseason form in the postseason. But in Game 7, he was aggressive going to the basket. And until he faded in the fourth quarter, he had made 8 of 12 shots for 18 of his 20 points.

Westbrook averaged 38 points on 62.5 percent shooting in two games against the Lakers this season. Every game he plays he has a chance to be closer to the star the Rockets will need him to be.

Every 3 Gordon sinks, every big night Covington produces makes the Rockets closer to what they will have to be. They drained the tanks a bit to move on to the Lakers with just one off day to refill. But in some ways, they leave the first round a better team than they were when it began.

3. Had the Rockets lost, the game would have been treated as a referendum on small ball.

Mostly, it would have been cited to judge Harden, but it also would have been said to be a statement about the Rockets’ decision to play without a center.

That could still come with the matchup against the Lakers, who are pretty good against teams that do play centers. But for all the conversation about the Rockets’ decision to replace the 6-10 Clint Capela in their lineup with the 6-7 Robert Covington, the Rockets’ size was not much of an issue.

Steven Adams had a few easy buckets. But the Rockets can live with allowing a piano mover of a center to score 10 points.

Overall in the series, the Rockets averaged more points in the paint and just two fewer second-chance points than the Thunder.

More to the point, Covington was outstanding. After scoring just 18 points in the first three games of the series combined, in the next four he averaged 18.8. On Wednesday, he added 10 rebounds, three steals and three blocked shots and did not commit a turnover.

Covington made half his shots and half his 3s in the series, having shown few signs of that kind of shooting in the seeding games when he made just 23.2 percent of his 3s.

To beat the Lakers, the Rockets will need every bit of that. They might not have made the change entirely with the Lakers in mind, but the Rockets could have decided that they would have to be different to be better. The Lakers have great size so the enormous size difference will be mentioned often. But the Rockets’ hope to win with 3s and layups was bolstered by the idea of letting Covington spread the floor, giving Harden and Westbrook room to attack and the Rockets another 3-point shooter.

That was a key to beating the Thunder and the hope against the Lakers.

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https://www.houstonchronicle.com/texas-sports-nation/rockets/article/3-pointers-Rockets-Game-7-win-Thunder-15539440.php

2020-09-03 06:41:00Z
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