James Harden, Dwight Howard sum up Rockets’ rough year in one play
It sure is nice when an on-court moment offers a picture-perfect encapsulation of what seems to be going on with a team. Shouts to James Harden and Dwight Howard for summing up the Houston Rockets’ failure to launch in one caught-on-camera botch during Tuesday’s matchup with the Utah Jazz:
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With the Rockets holding an early two-point lead, Harden takes a dribble handoff from Howard at the right elbow. Howard sticks Utah’s Rodney Hood with a stiff screen, giving Harden room to turn the corner and square up to the rim, which forces Jazz center Rudy Gobert to step away from the basket and step up to meet the All-Star scorer rather than giving him an uncontested shot. With rim-protecting marvel Gobert now away from the tin, Howard’s got a completely clean roll to the basket; Harden realizes this, and audibles away from taking a top-of-the-key jumper to loft a lob pass for a too-easy Howard dunk …
… except Howard, fully expecting Harden to take the shot (and understandably so, since James ain’t exactly shy about firing), stays groundbound as he moves into rebounding position rather than jumping up to catch and convert the alley-oop. The result: the ball thudding off the lower-right corner of the backboard, caroming past Howard’s reach and into Gobert’s grasp, and Harden and Howard letting their frustration momentarily boil over on the court, with each wondering what the hell the other was thinking.
Missed opportunities, crossed wires, hands thrown up in disgust amid disarray, expectations of success subverted and two inarguable talents combining for something that looks very right until it becomes clear that it’s all fantastically wrong. Your 2015-16 Houston Rockets, ladies and gentlemen!
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The sturm und drang push-and-pull that has plagued the Rockets all year long played out in miniature on Tuesday. After trailing by as many as 11 points on Tuesday, the Rockets stormed back to take a third-quarter lead thanks largely to dominant individual offensive play from Harden, who scored 12 of his game-high 42 points in the frame. Houston would squander the lead in the fourth quarter, though, with Jazz reserve Trey Burke hitting three big 3-pointers to help spark Utah to a six-point advantage with 4:32 remaining; the Rockets would then sprint to the finish, outscoring the Jazz 14-8 down the stretch and benefiting from a pair of big late-fourth breaks.
First, Utah star Gordon Hayward missed a key free throw with 17 seconds left — thanks, in part, to some pestering from Rockets guard Patrick Beverley — to keep Houston within one score:
Next, Rockets vet Jason Terry drilled a right-corner 3-pointer to knot the score at 106 and force overtime:
But the Rockets’ late-regulation success didn’t sustain them in the extra session, as Hood (five of his 18 points to go with five assists, five steals and four rebounds) and power forward Derrick Favors (four of his 19 points with 12 rebounds, three blocks, two steals, two assists and a dynamite defensive effort to contest in space on the game’s last possession) combined to lead Utah to a 117-114 win that gave the Jazz a half-game lead in the race for the West’s eighth seed and also improved them to 2-1 on the season against the Rockets.
On the other side, it drops Houston back a game below .500 despite another stellar individual offensive effort from Harden and another double-double (13 points, 16 rebounds, three blocks) for Howard, and offered perhaps the best illustration to date that talent and skill aside, what continues to elude Houston and its two stars — whether general manager Daryl Morey wants to separate them or not — are chemistry and communication.
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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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