After James Harden stripped by Dirk Nowitzki, Rockets suffer blow to playoff hopes
DALLAS — It was superstar on superstar, or maybe aging superstar on current superstar, and the old man won the battle.
Dirk Nowitzki stripped James Harden on a drive to the basket, a drive that might have led to a go-ahead bucket. Instead it pushed the Houston Rockets further from a reality they didn’t expect when the season started in late October: missing the postseason.
Houston lost to Dallas 88-86 on Wednesday night, and things are getting tighter and tighter in the lower half of the Western Conference playoff standings.
Houston’s loss keeps them ninth in the West, a game behind the Utah Jazz for the conference’s eighth and final seed with four games remaining. Though the season isn’t over, after seeing the Rockets lose like this, a playoff appearance looks slim.
At the start of the fourth quarter, Harden was just fantastic. He scored all of Houston’s first 12 points and it seemed he was about to take over this game.
In the closing moments, Houston had a chance to go ahead. Harden drove past Wesley Matthews to the basket and there was Nowitzki stripping him of the ball, forcing a turnover and the crowd to go crazy.
Harden was forced to foul, and it was over.
Harden finished with 26 points while taking 8 of 22 shots from the floor. But it was those six turnovers, the last one in particular, that will stick out the most. Maybe Harden thinks it’s a foul, maybe not, but the truth is the Rockets’ playoff hopes are becoming slim.
Phoenix is Thursday night’s opponent and the Rockets rolled past them to start the second half of the season, leaving many to think this group had turned the corner.
But all it has done has many thinking the Rockets are just not ready to make a postseason appearance.
