I said it in the second quarter where the Spurs commited their first foul with 29 seconds left remaining for the damn entire quarter. This game was bogus
At seasons end, this game means nothing in the standings. It sucks that we did lose and that we lost the season series 3 games to 1. But all 3 loses we were in it and the last 2 should have won it. This is how you learn for the playoffs. And if losing this game helps us mentally prepare for Utah coming up then that is fine with me.
Losing by 2 while leading for most of the game stings badly. I understand the anger and frustration by many here. Here is the silver lining: 1) winning or losing is almost irrelevant to our playoff seeding. If we keep up our percentage win, we will end up the season where we are now: 3rd seed. 2) I truly believe worst than losing this game would be our team to blow out the mightly Spurs at their home. Having lost a close game, our guys will hopefully work on the things that need improvement and learn from it for the playoffs. The opposite would have happened had we won big: our players would walk around with big heads giving them a false sense of security. 3) I know we had my man Hakeem in 1994-1995, but his regular season record against the Spurs was 0-4. You know how that turned out in the playoffs. 4) I am still confident we will have a good to great playoff showing. We are still finding out what works from the bench players. Maybe 3 guards is one too many.
Let me try this again, after deleting my first post by accident. I am not as upset as last night, but just as disappointed in what I saw. Is it just me, or does anyone else dislike the 3 guard rotation? Why on earth doesn't coach just rotate Bev and Harden with Lou and Eric? I would much rather see Dekker and Harrell come in for Ariza and Anderson. I don't like the small lineups, especially when everyone is underachieving. I wish Beverley would just start taking more 3's, because he is becoming one of our best 3 pt shooters. Harden was on fire offensively, but unfortunately when everyone else was mediocre it just wasn't enough. The bench was the biggest disappointment to me tonight, other than that 3 guard rotation I am sick of. I will say though, I think if Anderson hadn't tweaked his back, and could have played more we might have won that game.
Leonard made the big plays and won it for SAN. Tough to think harden's only FT miss was so big though. Worse... what in the word happened to the Dekker of earlier in the season? The one that made his draft pick seem like a good one? he did grab some important rebounds, but man, his offense is behind what Brewer was doing at this point (threes are way off, even missed layups). And was Lou Williams fools gold the first two games. While he is a good playmaker, what happened to his three point shot? Its amazing that despite Ariza, Dekker, Williams, Gordon, heck... everyone not named James Harden (and the two-headed center), we almost won. Even Anderson, who always seems to start off hot then the team goes away from him... and then his shot disappears.
Rookie wall and yes, last season did not count. In reality Sam is a rookie. He needs offseason in the gym and needs to work on his three ball.
I think Anderson would have been the difference maker. That little difference on both offense and defense could have given us the edge we needed. He probably didn't come back in because of his back.
Rockets played an average game last night by their standard and should have won. They need Gordon, Anderson,Williams, and Ariza to play much better. Harden was incredible. Tough loss but it shows if anything they belong in the GSW/Spurs/Cavs convo.
This game was perfect for our young guys and new guys to experience playoff level defense and intensity with no consequence. Were pretty much locked in 3rd anyway. Even with our youth and inexperience we should have had the game which means come playoff time we'll probably sweep the spurs.
The Spurs hit big shots in the last few minutes, while the Rockets missed wide open threes and Harden missed a free throw. The Rockets need to find a small forward that can make threes.
6 GB of 2 seed now... and 4 GB OF 4th... not a good look.. we play Utah a couple more times... danger of losing 3 seed TBH
Actually the Rockets were 1-5 against the Spurs that year. That was the last season prior to the Grizzlies and Raptors joining the NBA as expansion teams, so division rivals played each other more often back then. And BTW, the lone Rockets win vs San Antonio that year came courtesy of a last second 35 footer by Mad Max. I agree that we can look at the bright side in that the Rockets blew a 13 point lead late in the 4th quarter at home in their previous loss to the Spurs and were up 6 late last night before a bogus call on Ariza swung momentum back to San Antonio. Not to mention they were without Anderson for most of the game because his back tightened up. He just happens to be the guy who hit a clutch jumper late in that first game the Rockets won in San Antonio earlier in the season. So they're right there. They know they can play with the Spurs. They just have trouble closing. It's a far better position to be in than their recent struggles with the Warriors where a lot of the time, they're just getting blown out by Golden State.
At the end of the day, Rockets played a good game. Taking it to the very last possession against one of the best teams in the league at their vociferous home court. Rockets lack execution down the stretch and sometimes go brain dead and that is where we are lacking. Spurs and Pop have played this scenario several times. And we just ran into one of the best games by a top 3-4 player in the league in Kawhi All is well
I think we could've won this game if Lou didn't have such an off night. Shots just didn't drop for him last night. I expect he'll get out this shooting slump and move forward.
