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Nuggets top Rockets by Six
Posted: November 7, 2012 -- 10:58 p.m. CST.
HOUSTON, TX (Toyota Center) – Wednesday night, the Houston Rockets experienced what life is like when James Harden struggles on the basketball court. The Rockets lost to the Denver Nuggets 93-87 in front of a generously announced crowd of 13,372 fans.
Harden made only five of his 15 goal attempts and turned the ball over six times. Combine Harden's subpar game with Jeremy Lin's 2 for 9 shooting from the field; and, it would seem obvious the Rockets would have no chance to win a ball game. The Nuggets did a stellar job of keeping the Rockets in the game by missing free throws or fumbling the ball away 21 times; but, in the end, the Rockets got the loss and fell to 2 and 2 on the young NBA season while the Nuggets' record moves to 2 and 3.
Harden's 1 for 4 field goal shooting and three turnovers set the tone of the evening with a slow start in the first quarter.
The Nuggets led 25-18 after the first quarter.
The second quarter belong to Denver's Ty Lawson. Lawson torched the Rockets with 14 points in the period as the Rockets were outscored 31-18 by the Nuggets in the second stanza and trailed 56-41 at halftime.
The Rockets ramped up the defense in the third quarter and limited the Nuggets to just three made baskets on 15 attempts. Patrick Patterson scored 12 of the Rockets 23 points in the quarter to lead the Rockets.
The Nuggets led 82-72 midway through the fourth period before Harden scored four points during an 8-3 mini run which pulled the Rockets within five points (85-80). After Lawson missed his third and fourth straight free throws, Denver's Danilo Gallinari took advantage of poor rebounding position by the Rockets and tipped in Lawson's missed foul shot to deflate the crowd.
Minutes later, Jeremy Lin, with cotton in his left nostril to stop the bleeding, made two free throws to trim the Rockets' deficit to four points (91-87) with 81 seconds remaining in the game. Both teams missed shots over the next minute; but, after Rockets' forward Chandler Parsons missed a three-point shot attempt, Lin tipped the loose ball towards halfcourt. Denver's Kenneth Faried raced after the ball and glided through the air for a slam dunk for a six point Nuggets lead with 13.9 seconds left in the game.
After the game, Harden said, “Even though we didn’t play well, it’s still just our fourth game together. As the games go on, we’ll get better it’s just the fact we haven’t played together; we didn’t have a training camp or have time to really put in some sets so we’re kind of just figuring things out as we go.”
Carlos Delfino led the Rockets with 19 points off the bench. Patrick Patterson added 18 while Harden finished the game with 15. Center Omer Asik managed to score 10 points and grab 13 rebounds (in 22 minutes and 27 seconds) before leaving the game to get four stitches under his left eye.
Kevin McHale was not thrilled with his team's lack of ball and player movement, “We didn't cut and move. We were in a kind of a funk offense. We had to have ball movement. We had to have body movement. We're not cutting. The balls sticking. There is a lot of stuff that we've got to correct. Bottom line is we've got to correct it. We've got to get better at ball movement, body movement. They (Nuggets) had ten points where we had defensive transition. Their men just kept running. We stopped running and they just threw ahead. We had twenty turnovers again and it's self inflicting gunshot wounds for us right now. We just keep on doing the same things.”
Jeremy Lin added, “We need to play together a little longer and a little more movement. I haven’t wrapped my head around it, obviously a lot of the burden goes on me being the point guard. It’s something where we have to go back to the film and see where we did score and see what those possessions looked like. I think our passing and cutting through, playing off the big men, getting pick-and-rolls into weak-side swings, hitting the open guy in close-out situations, I think those are all positive for us. It’s one of those things that when it came to those first two games we did a great job of moving the ball and now the defenses are adjusting so it’s kind of back to the drawing board.”
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