NBA Playoffs Rd 2/G3: Rockets Wiped Out By Clippers 124-99

This Houston Rockets team can turn your stomach in knots!

I can’t believe what I saw last night, this was a game that was extremely important for the team to win and they just rolled over and cried uncle.

It’s mind-boggling as far as how bad they played in that 2nd half.

This is the playoffs right?

Then our team better act like they want to win this series!

It doesn’t appear that this team wants it badly enough and it’s apparently evident that the Clippers do!

A team has to have that sense of urgency and the Rockets didn’t have inkling of it last night when they needed it the most.

It was one of the worst efforts I’ve seen out this team the whole season.

It’s like they gave up and in professional sports, there’s no quitting, you’ve got to lay it on the line every time you’re out there!

I’m just extremely disappointed but let’s talk about how they unraveled for a bit.

This team hung tough in the 1st quarter but the Clippers started to pull away late with Matt Barnes, DeAndre Jordan and Jamal Crawford all contributing to a 7-0 run to end the quarter.

The only guy that seem to be dominating the paint on our end was Dwight Howard who already had nine points and six rebounds by quarter’s end.

The Rockets, however, still remained in striking distance, 33-24.

It was more of the same for the 2nd quarter — the Rockets did pull within four points after a Pablo Prigioni three-pointer and a bank shot by Josh Smith but that’s about the closest the Rockets would get. Clippers 33, Rockets 29

It was a 5-0 run the Rockets put together of their own.

But the Rockets were still held on their launch pad by the Clippers keeping their lead around 10 points.

When the Rockets would get a little closer, the Clips shot their way to push themselves back up.

The highlight to this quarter was when James Harden hit an encouraging buzzer-beater, going to his right then left, stepping back to nail a jumper with one second left in the quarter.

The Rockets trailed the Clippers 64-57 at the half.

The Beard only had 10 points and D12 had 13 but I wasn’t concerned at that moment because I knew they’d come around eventually.

Unfortunately they didn’t and in the 3rd quarter, the unthinkable happened.

Before that unthinkable event, things were promising, Jason Terry had just hit a big-time three-pointer pulling the Rockets back within three, 66-63 with 9:37 left.

But the Clippers, led by Austin Rivers, put together a 19-0 run late in the quarter to lead the Rockets 99-76 at the end.

Rivers had 16 of those 19 points — it was cringing to watch as he got anything he wanted and the Rockets were defenseless against it.

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These are the occasions where we need Patrick Beverley the most because Terry and Prigioni, despite their efforts, do not have the same level of defensive prowess.

The Clippers run continued through early in the 4th quarter and it seemed as if the Rockets were never going get off of 76 points scored.

The Clips eventually made that a 23-0 run with them already up 104-76 with 10:58 left.

The run was finally snapped by Trevor Ariza who sunk two free throws after being fouled by Blake Griffin with 10:08 left. Clippers 104, Rockets 78

There’s nothing much to report more than a Jet ejection with about eight minutes left after displaying his dissatisfaction to the Clippers of how things were going.

The Clippers eventually took the Rockets out of their misery and the Rockets fell 124-99 in an effort that futile at best.

The Rockets didn’t seem to playing any inkling of defense whatsoever, they were jacking up bad shots and had no sense of direction.

I’d have to chalk it up to Kevin McHale in that department.

It seemed that the team was freelancing their way through most of the game with little or no plays called while Doc Rivers was being the ultimate tactician in picking the Rockets apart.

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