The Houston Rockets appeared to have righted the ship concerning their early-season struggles in late-game situations, but that issue reappeared against the New York Knicks on Saturday.
Houston blew an 18-point fourth-quarter lead in its 108-106 loss. After posting a combined 70 points in the middle two periods while building a 91-75 lead entering the fourth, the Rockets recorded only 15 points in the final frame to split a two-game road trip out of the All-Star break.
Houston will host the Utah Jazz on Monday, the first of consecutive home games before a three-game road trip.
Despite entering Sunday eighth in the NBA in offensive rating at 116.8 points per 100 possessions, the Rockets have labored closing games this season, with their offensive execution at the forefront of their struggles. Houston has been wildly inconsistent while attempting to play without a traditional point guard, and has divvied up offensive orchestration duties between All-Stars Alperen Sengun and Kevin Durant, as well as Amen Thompson and Reed Sheppard, to varying results.
When the Rockets lost veteran point guard Fred VanVleet to a preseason knee injury, the bulk of the responsibility to run the offense fell on Thompson, whose unique combination of speed, strength and athleticism made him a bit of a wild card entering his third season in the league.
Because shooting isn’t his forte, Thompson has faced opponents opting to defend him with a sagging center, and that gambit has stifled his ability to get to the rim while enticing Thompson to take low-efficiency shots. The Rockets recently showed Thompson game tape aimed at reinforcing how he is being defended and the potential counterattacks.
“He’s going to have the ball in a lot of different areas,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said of Thompson, who had 12 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists and three turnovers against the Knicks. “We put a film together of him as a handler, him as a screener, him as a dunker in certain spacing. When he’s bringing it up, and there’s nothing there, we’ve got to get to the second action quicker.
“He’s a guy that plays with a crazy amount of pace that can get up there and set those (screens). You have to play with a certain level of physicality, but that’s a lot of what he did his first and second year.”
The Jazz were without Lauri Markkanen (illness) and Keyonte George (ankle), their two leading scorers, in a 123-114 road loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday. Markkanen and George are averaging a combined 50.5 points per game this season, so their absences were significant. Markannen is probable for Monday and George is questionable.
Also of note for the Jazz were their 24 turnovers against the Grizzlies. Memphis converted those miscues into 30 points, further undermining the effort for the short-handed and youthful Jazz.
“That’s something we’ve been focused on the last two years,” Jazz coach Will Hardy said. “When we take care of the ball, we’re hard to guard. When we get a little bit careless, it puts us in a hole.”
