Turn Out The Lights
Turn out the lights, the party’s over.
They say that all good things must end.
Wise words from Texan Willie Nelson. The lights came up on the Rockets 11 game winning streak tonight. Rockets fans can be upset, but I urge the adoption of the wry, philosophical attitude of Willie in this case.
What a crazy, crazy party.
Raise your hand high if you saw the Rockets going on an 11 game win streak this season? Raise your hand if you thought being over .500 was possible? Raise your hand if you thought the Rockets would have a shot at the play-in game after their bleak mid-winter?
Ah, well, Willie has his hand up.
It’s just as well the streak ends in a no doubt loss, where the opponent not only made their easy looks, but also their moderate looks, their difficult looks, and their preposterously stupid looks. Luka Doncic is just great at scoring, and Kyrie Irving is mostly great at being great when no one really needs him, so him going wild with a big Maverick’s lead is echte Kyrie.
The Mavs are an interesting team, and the sort of team I think I know quite well. As well as I know a stocky bearded man dribbling for 16 seconds before shooting a contested stepback 3pter.
The Mavs will go as far as Luka Doncic takes them, and not a step, not an inch, farther. Because Kyrie won’t drag them forward when the chips are down, and none of Luka’s domestiques will drag them along in tough games either.
Jason Kidd? Hall of Fame domestique. Tonight he let a limping, reputedly injured, Luka Doncic back into a settled game in the 4th quarter so he could hunt a round number of points. That. Is. Madness. It’s weak, and bogus, but then that’s sort of how I see Kidd’s coaching generally, so take it with a grain of salt. Luka didn’t get his 50 piece, but he did seem to aggravate his injured leg. Sometimes that’s the sort of thing postseason dreams hinge upon. Hope that profile in cowardice was worth it, Jason.
Luka basically won the game for Dallas in the first half, and as the Rockets pressed, and gambled, the other Mavs flourished, too. But that was a consequence of Luka, as all things Mavs are.
Tonight we saw a glimpse of the Rockets from the bad winter nights. Silly mistakes. Amen looking like a rookie as he tried to do more, and went outside his envelop of competence. (Don’t worry, it’s going to be more of supertanker than an envelop pretty soon, to stretch the container metaphor.)
We saw Jalen try to do too much, to rush his shots, and therefore, miss his shots. He was back to unbalanced Jalen – a perfectly respectable 5-10 on 2pt shots, and a painful 0-5 on three point shots. But his game, with all due respect was off, but not collapsed. He still grabbed 6 boards, and dished 5 assists to 2 turnovers. He fought on defense, and looked for his teammates.
The Rockets experienced the gravitational warping of the court a great player on a hot streak causes. There’s really nothing you can do about a guy going 9-16 on three point shots. What you might do, the Rockets tried. The tried doubling, or sending help onto Luka. He shot over that, and made it.
When defense did work, Dallas seemed to grab every well defended miss as a offensive rebound, and then make the next shot. As a team they shot 51% on three pointers, and shot nearly fifty of them. If the Rockets put in Jock Landale to help rebounded, Luka ruthlessly hunted him, immediately sensing the Rockets were over switching, and calling up Jock over and over. Jock battled, but it’s not a battle he can win, starting around the FT line.
When the Rockets got aggressive and trapped Luka and Dallas it worked. For about four minutes, until Luka diagnosed that, too, and either set up dunks or wide open 3pt attempts.
Lost perhaps in this painful loss that combined with other results, hurts the Rockets play-in chances, were three good things.
One, Jabari Smith Jr. played a great game.
Jabari played 36 minutes, scored 28pts on 9-14 shooting, and 5-7 3pt shots, grabbed seven boards, dished 2 assists, blocked 3 shots and played ruggedly, with force, on both offense and defense, while only giving up 1 foul. Jabari was not the matchup Luka wanted call up on the screen. Jabari can more or less stay with him, as much as any defender can, and is taller, so he’s really your best hope until Cam Whitmore matures as a player.
Two, Cam Whitmore returned. Would he be shy about shooting on his return? No. He put up 12 shots, and scored 13pts. He tried on defense.
Three, the Rockets never packed it in. The battled the whole game. Sometimes that’s not a great idea, but for a team in the Rockets position, it usually is.
This one hurt, but the season as a whole hurts a lot less than it did at the beginning of March.
Turn out the lights,
The party’s over
And tomorrow starts the same old thing again.