Houston Rockets Get All ‘Nastied’ Up By The San Antonio Spurs

The Houston Rockets resumed their semifinals series with the San Antonio Spurs tonight and they were hoping for a repeat of Game 1’s heroics.

The Houston Rockets resumed their semifinals series with the San Antonio Spurs tonight and they were hoping for a repeat of Game 1’s heroics.

Did it happen tonight?

Let’s take a look and examine what happened.

It all started with a Kawhi Leonard three and the momentum started to lift for the Spurs from there.

The Houston Rockets had fell to a 10-4 deficit before the team went on a 8-2 run capped off by a Ryan Anderson three with 8:41 left in the 1st quarter.

Rockets 12, Spurs 10

Things continued to remain close as the Spurs were determined to slow down the Houston Rockets rapid pace of last game.

They knew that’s what did them in and that key adjustment worked in their favor.

Each team continued to trade baskets and the Rockets found themselves training 33-30 at the end of the 1st.

In the 2nd quarter, the Spurs got physical with the Rockets, being able to match their shooting tit-for-tat and continuing to keep the pace of the game to the level that they’re used to.

This resulted in the Rockets trailing for all of the quarter with the — exception of a couple of early ties — with the score at the half being 65-55.

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The Rockets then came out firing after the half, chipping away at their deficit and getting within three points when Troy Williams hit a three-pointer with 16 seconds left to make the score 86-83.

Jonathon Simmons countered pulled up with the jumper to put the Spurs up by five right at the buzzer indicating the end of the third quarter.

The Rockets unraveled quickly in 4th quarter with the Spurs going up by as much 30 points with our team only taking the lead once in this game.

The 12-10 lead they had turned out to be the only lead they had with it being ALL Spurs the rest of the way.

Tony Parker, who was having an incredible game, injured his right leg while pulling up with a jumper with 8:43 left in 4th so his status for Game 3 remains uncertain.

He couldn’t walk on his power and had to be carried to the locker room by two of his teammates on the bench.

I hope the guy’s okay because he’s the ultimate competitor and I’d rather face this Spurs team at full strength.

But we’ll see.

The Rockets had six guys in double-figures — Anderson, Patrick Beverley, Clint Capela, James Harden, Nene Hilario and Eric Gordon — with Anderson leading with 18 points and eight rebounds, going 4-of-5 from behind-the-arc.

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It clearly was his best game of the postseason thus far.

Harden had 13 points off 3-for-17 shooting but chipped in 10 dimes and seven boards.

He’ll bounce back — I’m not worried about him.

Leonard led the Spurs with 34 points, eight assists and seven rebounds.

Pau Gasol had a game-high 13 rebounds while Parker had 18/4 before going down.

The Spurs executed exactly what they wanted and the Rockets had to suffer as a result.

Did you expect the Rockets to do the same thing to the Spurs?

Absolutely not — they’re just too good to allow that to happen.

Gregg Popovich wanted to see some nasty and the Rockets got it big time.

The Rockets were beat in just about every category that counted — notwithstanding the final score — and the most alarming was the rebounding.

They were out-rebounded by the Spurs 47-32.

Yikes!

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The Rockets will recover, especially since the series will move to H-Town for the rest of the week starting Friday.

That should be enough momentum to propel this team back in the driver’s seat once again.

Not it’s time to refocus, regroup and zone in on the task at hand to win some more basketball games.

See ya’ll Friday.

Go Rockets.