NBA Playoffs 2017: Spurs vs. Rockets Game 4 live stream: Watch online
By Chazz Scogna
The Houston Rockets try to even their Western Conference semifinal series with the San Antonio Spurs in Game 4.
Game 3 was a Spurs masterpiece, well, at least defensively. San Antonio held the Rockets to 92 points, their lowest total this season. The win wasn’t pretty. The Spurs had 17 turnovers through three quarters, nine more than their entire Game 2 total. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective.
The score after the first quarter was 21-19. At half, it was 49-43. It took a 60-point second half with fourth-quarter garbage time for either team to break 100, let alone 90. In fact, without a huge fourth from James Harden, the Rockets don’t even break 90.
Offensively, LaMarcus Aldridge was able to pick up the slack for a recently injured Tony Parker, who will miss the rest of the postseason. Aldridge finished with 26 points on 12-20 shooting and four blocks. The Spurs’ big had an offensive rating of 106, which dwarfed any player on the Rockets.
As for the Rockets, they were beat by their own style. Since the Rockets live by launching 3s and finishing at the rim, the Spurs countered by forcing them to pick shooting 3s. With their classic two-big lineup, the Spurs packed the paint and denied lanes for drives. Subsequently, the Rockets had to kick out to open 3-point-shooters with three or four black jerseys surrounding them. Worse for Houston, they couldn’t hit those 3s.
That’s the potential trouble with Moreyball. With such a reliance on the best possible shot, the Rockets — for all their prowess — are predictable. Without the strategy to say, pull-up from mid-range, which would force those bigs to contest and abandon the paint, the Rockets constantly drove into big bodies.
The Rockets did attempt 10 mid-range jumpers, almost as much as Game 1 and 2 combined, but it wasn’t within the flow of someone like DeMar DeRozan or CJ McCollum. Their mid-range game was a product of the Spurs clogging the paint and frantically closing out on shooters.
Projected Starting Lineups
Spurs: Dejounte Murray, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, LaMarcus Aldridge and Pau Gasol
Rockets: Patrick Beverley, James Harden, Trevor Ariza, Ryan Anderson and Clint Capela