NBA Week 10 Rewind: West elite emerging above all others
By Tom West
Who’s Struggling?
The Houston Rockets could make an appearance here every week considering the troubles they’ve had so far in 2015-16. After humiliating the Clippers with their renowned 3-1 series comeback in the second round of the playoffs and making the Western Conference Finals, the Rockets have shot down the NBA power rankings.
Except for the occasional big night from James Harden when he’s making some of his countless shot attempts, the Rockets haven’t had much going for them at all this season. Kevin McHale was fired shortly after the season began, Ty Lawson has been a total flop, their defense has been terrible (25th in the NBA in efficiency), their ball movement has been poor, and they’ve simply lost far too many games to be taken remotely seriously this season.
At 16-19 and 8th place in the West after losing their last four games, they don’t look anything like a contender. After their surprising Christmas Day victory over the Spurs, the Rockets have proceeded to lose all of their last four games. Losing to the Atlanta Hawks and Warriors is understandable, but falling to the Pelicans cannot happen.
In their rematch against the Spurs on Sunday, allowing 121 points also cannot happen if they want to climb much higher than the 8th seed.
While the Warriors, Spurs and Thunder keep racking up the wins to look formidable as the clear-cut top three in the West, it’s the fall of teams like the Rockets that helps make this strong division between the contenders and the lower seeds so glaring.
The Phoenix Suns are adding to the movement of the Western Conference looking less and less dominant in comparison to the East.
Besides falling and struggling teams like the Rockets, the depleted Portland Trail Blazers and the incredibly disappointing Pelicans, the mess that is the Phoenix Suns are a major reason why. Quite frankly, they’re a mess right now. From a cohesive, defensive, ball movement, or any other kind of standpoint you can think of, that’s essentially the case. And with nine straight losses sitting at 14th in the West, it’s impossible to argue otherwise.
However, in their defense, they have recently faced the Cleveland Cavaliers, Spurs and Thunder. It’s hard to make a three-game stretch more difficult than that. Although, before that, they lost games to the Milwaukee Bucks (fair enough), Denver Nuggets (more concerning) and, you won’t believe this, the pathetic 76ers.
Now, as if their season didn’t look miserable enough, they have since surrendered 142 points in a loss to the Kings, and even worse, they lost to the Lakers, 97-77 on Sunday night.
Next: The Best Highlights of Week 10