The Twelve Takes of Christmas: (At Least) Three Bitter Paragraphs!
Sometimes this game can drive you insane. The Rockets, on the second night of back-to-back played the Minnesota Timberwolves, who last played on Christmas. The first half didn’t look great, with the Timberwolves shooting lights out from three. Minnesota shot around 70% from the 3pt line at halftime, but only lead by five points, 56-52, basically due to Rockets tenacity, and a good half from Alperen Sengun, who ultimately finished with 38pts on 16-25 shooting, 12 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 steal. He’d miss two key free throws late, however, which would prove costly.
The Rockets came back from an even larger deficit in the third quarter, in part from very strong play from the starters, with goodness from Amen Thompson 20/11/1/1/1. As the third quarter wore on, the Rockets began to even things up, and then took a small lead. At the end of the period the Rockets were up 8 points, 84-76, but couldn’t pull away more than that. Minnesota kept shooting the three well, though they did decline from near 70% at halftime to around 50% in the second half, where they would remain, on very high volume.
The fourth quarter saw an effort from the bench, with Aaron Holiday and Jae’Sean Tate, along with a nearly unstoppable Sengun widening a lead to 16 points with three minutes left. You’d think that would lead to a Rockets win, but it was not to be. In that space Minnesota kept putting up threes, kept making seemingly all of them, and cutting that big lead away.
Ok, more paragraphs.
The Rockets couldn’t seem to do anything to stop the Timberwolves, and couldn’t seem to score. Why would that happen? Well, it might be due to a back-to-back and playing the starters these minutes
Jabari -43
Thompson -39
Sengun -41
Green – 39
VanVleet – 39
Remember, they played last night. Not in Houston.
Yes, the starters didn’t play that many minutes, but they did play basketball in another city. So Ant Edwards made an Ant Edwards Special Heroball Shot to give Minnesota the lead. The Rockets had a chance to retake the lead after that.
Maybe the team could have used a timeout? The Rockets starters certainly seemed dead on their feet, but despite having one timeout, and needing any sort of basket, with all the starters basically playing essentially 40 minutes, no timeout was called. Sengun had already missed 2 of four free throws to let Minnesota take that one point lead anyway.
Perhaps this was meant to be a learning experience? But for whom? Ime? He said his usual post game stuff, no mention of any different decisions he might have taken.
Will the Rockets starters learn something? Will they learn not be tired on a B2B after playing 40 minutes? Could the coaches not see what was happening? No ideas there? Not even a timeout for a play at the end? Was there yet another manliness lesson for the Rockets to learn?
This was, by far, the most annoying loss of the season.
Don’t let that lead you to some sort of sweeping proclamation about the Rockets. There basically aren’t any, unless you want to talk about Ime playing THE ENTIRE BENCH 40 total minutes on a B2B, with two key players out already, against a good opponent. In any case, I’m willing to bet Julius Randle doesn’t go 5-6 from three again this season, that Minnesota doesn’t shoot 50% from three on 43+ attempts, again this season.
The Rockets play the Heat on Sunday, and I expect, hope, that Tari Eason will return. Hopefully Dillon Brooks will return. Perhaps one day a Rockets coach will take responsibility for decisions that lie entirely with them. Anything is possible.