After losing to the League No. 1 Suns 3 straight losses last game, the Rockets today ushered in a home game against the Pacers, in fact, in terms of the strength of the two sides, the two teams are not too far apart, so for the Rockets, this is a completely win that can be fought for.
But in the end, the Rockets were swallowed by the Pacers by 12 points to swallow four consecutive losses, the Rockets' record also came to 17 wins and 52 losses, sitting in the league's penultimate number one, and after this game, the Rockets became the only team in the West that missed the playoffs. In fact, it is still a pity that the Rockets lost this game, because although the Rockets once fell behind their opponents by 8 points in the first half, after the second half, the Rockets were full of firepower not only to overtake the score, but at the end of the third quarter, the Rockets lost these advantages a little bit, and finally lost to the Pacers 118:121.
Rockets coach Silas was quite unhappy with the loss of this game, and admitted in an interview that he was disappointed in the players, Silas said: "I was disappointed with our players, I thought our performance was enough to win. Yes, I was disappointed. But I'm not going to feel that way this season, I'm just going to be disappointed occasionally. But in fact, the Rockets lost in this game, Silas has an unshirkable responsibility, because at the end of the third quarter, the Rockets already have a 12-point lead, but at the beginning of the fourth quarter, Silas put up a substitute 5-man group such as Schroder + Christopher + Knicks + Martin Jr. + Shen Jing, and was played by the opponent in less than 3 minutes, which can be said to be the turning point for the Rockets to lose the game.
First of all, the lineup put out by Silas is quite deformed, these 3 defender players need to hold the ball in hand, plus Shen Jing also needs the ball, so when this 5-man group is present, the Rockets can not play at all, you can see that the team does not have any cooperation during this time, the field is more of a single ball, the key is not to score. In addition, this lineup also has a drawback, that is, no player can open up the offensive space, which allows the opponent to shrink the basket hard, but after being played several times by the opponent in a row, Silas called a timeout to rearrange, but it was a mistake to come back. When the game time is still 6 minutes and 33 seconds left, the rocket 101:97 only led the opponent by 4 points, the key is that the team's main force returned after the feel declined, the third quarter of the single quarter bombed 6 shots in the wood fourth quarter only one shot, while the team did not significantly improve on the defensive end, and finally let the opponent bomb 38 points in the single quarter, the Rockets only scored 25 points, and the opponent reversed the opponent in one quarter.
During this period, Silas made three typical mistakes, the first was to put up a deformed lineup that began in the fourth quarter; the second was to let this deformed lineup play for nearly half a quarter; and the third was not to emphasize defense after the main lineup returned. So it doesn't make sense for Silas to blame the players for losing this game. Of course, it could also be that Silas deliberately wanted to do this to ensure the Rockets League's penultimate position...