J.B. Bickerstaff on his Rockets: ‘We’ve disrespected the game’
Houston Rockets interim head coach J.B. Bickerstaff went on a clichéd, tough guy sports talk radio-styled rant following his team’s loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday night. His team lost by just two points, on the second night of a back-to-back on the road, to what was considered a potential 50-game winner prior to the season. The diatribe was similar to too many coaching overreactions we’ve seen over the NBA years, placed following a late-December game well before the season’s midpoint.
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The problem here is that this reaction was the correct one. The Rockets, who should be desperately trying to save their season, slept their way through too many possessions in the loss, and following the game Bickerstaff accurately went off.
“We come out here tonight, things aren’t easy, things don’t go our way and we turn into the ugly Rockets again. It’s frustrating for me, it’s frustrating for all of us I’m sure, but it’s not treating the game the right way. Over and over again we’ve disrespected the game.”
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“Our priorities need to be clear and I need to do a better job of playing the people whose priorities are clear,” said Bickerstaff. “Winning is the only priority. If they’re not playing with that priority in mind, then they’re doing other things. Winning is the only priority that matters. That’s the message that should be loud and clear. We haven’t played to that level enough this year.”
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“Our issue is doing things right because it’s the right thing to do,” said Bickerstaff. “Not because it’s going to get me a bucket, not because it’s going to get me a shot, not because I get the glory. That’s not what this is about. And that’s what our problem is right now.”
Again, these are junior high coach/bad sportswriter clichés, but Bickerstaff ain’t wrong. The Rockets had to work on Christmas and also had to travel overnight to New Orleans, back-to-backs on the road are tough for even the best of teams, and they still only lost by two.
So many fixable things happened in the course of this game, though, that could have changed things for the Rockets. Ideally it’s a coach’s job to develop an atmosphere that encourages cohesion, but at some point the blame has to fall on the players – especially after it costs another coach his job.
Nobody, in a 48 minute frame, truly stood out as disrespectful. The Rockets did not defend well and could have stood to initiate offensive possessions with Dwight Howard earlier in the shot clock, but the heels don’t come easy, here. Any new heels, at least.
On top of that – again – had Trevor Ariza made a better in-bound pass in the game’s final seconds, a 29-point per game scorer would have had a good shot to tie or even win the game. James Harden never got that shot, but he has already drawn the ire of Rockets fans, and once again raised the conundrum of what, exactly, you do with a situation like Houston’s.
Harden is the obvious punching bag here, and that’s just fine. His box score stats from Saturday weren’t bad – 25 points on 21 shots, five assists to two turnovers – but his defense wasn’t helpful and he could have pushed things more. Terrence Jones had a few iffy moments offensively, Dwight Howard seems to mope through possessions on both ends (especially in this game) if he doesn’t get the ball offensively, and for whatever reason Marcus Thornton (whom Bickerstaff yo-yos around minutes-wise) didn’t get his usual reps. Ty Lawson needed nine shots to get his nine points.
James Harden is supposed to dominate the ball, though. That’s why he was brought to Houston. Jones is supposed to be a black hole; he’s there to be a scorer off the bench. You know you have to treat Howard with kid gloves – this was the guy that left millions on the table to leave 72 and sunny in Los Angeles because Kobe Bryant was mean to him. And the idea that you’re going to sit the guys that aren’t working the right way is ridiculous – are Corey Brewer and Sam Dekker now going to get 15 shots a game just because they run hard?
Houston’s win on Christmas Day was encouraging, they held a great San Antonio offense to 84 points and kept things relatively tidy offensively in the face of the league’s best defense. One shouldn’t lose one’s mind over a two-point win on the road to a formidable opponent, but when all the deadening hallmarks are there (26 points given up in the fourth quarter, sloppy offense down the stretch, questionable motivation from the team’s two stars), it’s understandable that Bickerstaff would go off a bit.
Especially when, as we’ve noted several times here, this squad is only just started what will be a hellacious run of games.
This is a Last Chance Diner Move. A coach – the team’s second coach of the season – calling out players for not respecting the game? In December? This is not going well.
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
