Rockets 98, Thunder 96
Observations, news and notes from Friday night’s game…..
* We saw the good, the bad and the ugly from Kevin Durant tonight. I wrote my game story about it for Saturday’s paper. The points (27), rebounds (six), assists (five) and efficiency (11 of 22) served as the good. The missed 20-footer that could have tied it with less than 10 seconds left was the bad. The two turnovers in the final 1:21, and seven for the game, was the ugly.
* Durant took the blame for the loss, saying point blank, “I blame that game on me.” It was a good see the franchise carrying himself accordingly.
* Last thing about KD. Something tells me he’ll have this game in the back of his mind when he’s in the weight room this summer after getting the ball stripped from his hands on multiple occasions tonight.
* Jeff Green was held to 30 foul-plagued minutes and finished with just 11 points and six rebounds. He had three fouls in the first four minutes and never really was a factor tonight. Tracy McGrady had his way against Green and got most of the calls to go his way. Hard to say Green was effective on T-Mac when the Rockets’ guard had 13 points in the first quarter and 19 in the first half, many of them coming after he had already helped put Green in foul trouble.
* I thought Nenad Krstic looked decent. He said afterwards that he expects his jumper to start falling and attributed his six misses on 10 shots to a little first-home-game jitters. But Krstic said his conditioning was good and that there were only a few moments during his 24 minutes of action where he felt winded. Krstic’s two blocks for the second straight game were a good sign.
* After just two games, coach Scott Brooks all but said after the two-point loss to the Rockets that Krstic is about to start taking some playing time.
“We know what he can do,” Brooks said. “He showed that the last couple of games and the last week or so of practice. Now it’s going to be based on everybody’s performance. You earn your minutes. He’s earning minutes right now, and we like what he’s bringing to our team. Our guys, you can see that they enjoy playing with him. He knows how to play.”
* My guess is we see Nenad starting either Wednesday against Utah or next Friday against Detroit.
* The first victim of Krstic’s arrival was Chris Wilcox, who didn’t play tonight and seems to be out of the mix now that Joe Smith and Nick Collison are healthy.
“You can’t play six bigs,” Brooks said. “Unfortunately, that’s just the way the game is. I want him to start many games. You can’t start your entire team. I understand the situation is tough for guys that don’t get to play. That’s my decision and we have to continue to be professional about it and Weezy has.”
Fair enough, right? Right until my intensively inquisitive co-worker Mike Baldwin continued to dig for more and asked Brooks if matchups would dictate playing time and we could see Wilcox on Saturday against the Bulls. Brooks’ answer to that inquiry was much more telling.
“We’ll see how the game is going,” Brooks said. “But right now, I like what our bigs did tonight. And we anticipate them playing well tomorrow night.”
* Add Damien Wilkins and an increasingly limited Earl Watson to Wilcox’s group of on the outside looking in.
* Kyle Weaver continues to make the most of the time he’s given.
* Give credit to Krstic, Robert Swift and Joe Smith for limiting Yao to 14 points and seven rebounds while forcing him into six turnovers. Yao missed seven of 10 shots and was never found his comfort zone.
* OKC out-rebounded Houston 44-31. Not bad considering the Rockets are the seventh best rebounding team at 42 per game.
* The Thunder’s 22 turnovers, leading to 21 Rockets points, hurt.
* Houston’s 25 made free throws on 31 attempts compared to OKC’s 14 makes on 16 attempts hurt just as much.
-DM-
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