Brewer’s 30-footer forces OT, Harden pours in 45, Rockets beat Blazers
For most of Wednesday evening, it looked like nothing much had changed for the Houston Rockets.
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Yes, J.B. Bickerstaff was at the head of the bench, serving as the interim coach after the Rockets had fired head coach Kevin McHale in a move first reported by Yahoo Sports NBA columnist Adrian Wojnarowski. Yes, the starting lineup had been shaken up, with veteran Jason Terry inserted alongside James Harden in favor of Ty Lawson in the backcourt as Bickerstaff looked for a way to get both of his top two ball-handlers going after weeks of early-season scuffling.
By and large, though, Houston looked like the same disjointed and dysfunctional collection of disinterested parties that had lost four straight and seven of 11, turning in dismal defense and awful offense en route to what looked like another dispiriting defeat at the hands of the visiting Portland Trail Blazers. And then — in a move reminiscent of their backs-against-the-wall comeback against the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 6 of the 2015 Western Conference semifinals — Houston woke up.
After falling behind by as many as 17 in the third quarter, the Rockets needed just three minutes to rip off a 13-2 fourth-quarter run and get within two points. The Blazers responded, pushing the lead back up to nine, but the Rockets kept charging, forcing Portland to earn points from the free-throw line, staying within hailing distance and trailing 99-96 with just 6.6 seconds remaining after a pair of freebies by Blazers forward Al-Farouq Aminu.
With no timeouts, the Rockets needed to go the length of the floor and hit a 3-pointer that would keep them from wasting this breakneck comeback, that would hand them their fifth straight defeat and would open them up to a fresh batch of “maybe the problem was you guys and not the coach” post-mortems. They needed a miracle.
Corey Brewer, please pick up the nearest white courtesy telephone.
After taking the inbounds pass, Harden eluded the grasp of Blazers wing Allen Crabbe and raced toward the frontcourt. He dodged an impeding-but-trying-not-to-foul Mason Plumlee, but in so doing picked up his dribble and leapt over the half-court line. Harden didn’t want to launch a desperation 45-footer with five seconds still remaining on the game clock, so he looked for an escape valve.
He found one in Brewer, streaking down the right wing all the way on the other side of the court. Harden kicked it cross-court, where Brewer caught it and in one motion leapt off one foot to have a go from 30 feet out. He found nothing but nylon, splashing the triple and tying the game at 99 with nine-tenths of a second remaining. After an attempt at a game-winner by Blazers All-Star Damian Lillard — who knows a thing or two about driving daggers through Houstonians’ hearts — came up short, with Harden credited with a block on the play, the game improbably headed to overtime.
From there, Harden continued a post-halftime takeover in which he produced more like the MVP runner-up and All-NBA First-Teamer he was last season than like the can’t-shoot-straight chucker who entered Wednesday firing up 9.4 triples a game despite making only 26.2 percent of them:
Harden scored all nine Houston points in the extra session, propelling his club past Portland to a 108-103 victory that, for the time being, allowed the Rockets and their fans to exhale.
The post-game story is very, very different for the Blazers, who dropped their seventh straight contest amid yet another late-game collapse, as detailed by Erik Gundersen of The Columbian:
Before we talk about this game, let’s put in detail just how bad the Blazers have been late in games through 13 games. After tonight, roughly 16 percent of the way through the season, the Blazers have posted a league-worst -15.5 net-rating in the 4th quarter according to NBA.com, which is the team’s point differential per 100 possessions. They have the 26th ranked effective field goal percentage in the 4th quarter and 26th in turnover percentage. […]
The Rockets didn’t really deserve to win this game. But sometimes in the NBA, one good quarter is all you need to change your narrative. They did that tonight. Portland, as has become the norm lately, has to wait another night to shake up theirs.
Harden scored 35 of his game-high 45 points — his third 40-plus-point game of the season, tying him with Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook for the league lead — after intermission, including 17 in the fourth quarter as the Rockets erased a 15-point Blazer advantage. He still doesn’t seem to have worked out the kinks in his stroke — he shot just 11-for-29 from the field, and 4-for-15 from 3-point range — but he bulled his way to the basket, used his footwork and fakes to get free in the post and, as is his custom, made his hay at the free-throw line, converting 19 of 20 chances.
Harden also dished out 11 assists against five turnovers while pulling down eight rebounds and snagging five steals in 47 1/2 minutes of work. That line put Harden in some very select (and fairly random) company:
… and it gave the Rockets just enough firepower to complete their comeback, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat on a night that saw them miss 60 of their 92 field-goal attempts and miss a whopping 30 3-pointers — none, of course, bigger than the off-kilter runner that Brewer dropped through the net in the final second of the fourth.
With 60 seconds remaining in this game, the Rockets had a 1.1 percent chance of pulling out the victory, according to the win probability model of InPredictable’s Mike Beuoy. Corey Brewer, agent of chaos, cares not for probabilities, preferring to deal only in expectation-flouting disruption. He hopes his latest masterpiece helps put the Rockets back on an upward trajectory after a trying start to the season.
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“I knew they were going to try to foul. We knew,” said Brewer, who scored 13 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter, during a postgame interview. “James was able to get away from the defender, and he threw it to me. I just let it go. It felt good when it left my hand. Nothing but the bottom, so, good play for us.
“We needed something to change the season around, and that could be the play, right there,” he added. “Now it’s time to get rolling.”
Saying that is one thing. Actually staying in motion is another.
Recall, if you will, that after the Rockets opened the season with three consecutive 20-point losses that started us wondering what was the matter, Harden turned in a 37-point performance to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder and start a four-game winning streak that featured two 40-plus-point outings. That, as it turned out, didn’t solve anything — Houston would lose four straight and look bad doing so, leading owner Leslie Alexander and general manager Daryl Morey to determine that McHale had lost his players’ ears and that the club needed a new voice to get back on track.
The losing skid’s snapped and Bickerstaff has his first win; now comes the hard part. Harden must ratchet up his level of defensive focus from the inattentive brand of ball he’s played for much of this season back to the solid-enough sort he played last year; if he commits on that end, the rest of his teammates, who’ve also done their fair share of lazing through possessions, will follow suit. Center Dwight Howard — who has already missed four games this season due to injury and rest concerns, and who chipped in seven points, 19 rebounds, three blocks and two assists in 40 minutes on Wednesday — must find ways to stay in the lineup and be productive on both ends in the process.
Lawson, who scored just two points on 1-for-8 shooting and didn’t play at all after the third quarter, has to figure out how to contribute as a sixth man. Brewer and Trevor Ariza (18 points on 6-for-18 shooting, including 4-for-12 from 3) must start making shots with more regularity. Everyone has to do everything — getting back in transition, communicating on defense, moving without the ball on offense, and all the rest of it — with purpose and pride. Everyone has to try harder, starting at the top.
“Making shots or missing shots, I’ve got to get my game where it needs to be to get this team where it wants to go,” Harden said after the game, according to Jordan Godwin of The Associated Press. “Picking my energy up tonight was the beginning of it.”
Had Harden and his compatriots brought that energy from the beginning of the season, McHale might well still be walking the sideline. But they didn’t, so he isn’t, and Houston’s now under new management … and if the Rockets start to right the ship and eventually reclaim their place among the ranks of Western Conference contenders, we might find ourselves pointing back to an answered 30-foot prayer on one weird Wednesday in November as the catalyst for their much-needed recalibration.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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