That was not one of the prettiest games of the year to watch. Dwight Howard was sitting due to rest, then Patrick Beverley, Donatas Motiejunas and Kostas Papanikolaou all out with injuries for the Houston Rockets, the Sacramento Kings took advantage of the incontinuity and almost pulled off the upset on this April Fool's.
Things I Loved:
- James Harden was an absolute monster tonight for the Rockets. He set a new career high with 51 points, tied a career high with eight three pointers and also was very vocal in his leadership out on the court tonight.
- Terrence Jones being on the court, being healthy, scoring 16 points, rebounding, playing defense and blocking shots like they were going out of style! He had seven blocks tonight. No big deal.
- Even though they kept blowing big leads (more on that later) the Rockets showed a lot of resilience and kept the Kings at bey.
- Speaking of blocks, the Rockets as a team blocked 13 shots total tonight.
Things I Liked:
- The Rockets forced the Kings into 21 turnovers tonight.
- Trevor Ariza continues his hot shooting. He had 22 points tonight on 50% shooting from the field.
- Just because I'm a geek and I like weird stuff like this, the Kings shot 50% across the board tonight. They were 48-96 from the field, 7-14 from three and 8-16 from the charity stripe. Yes, nothing to do with the Rockets, but I thought it was a fun stat line. Never seen it before.
Things I Wasn't Fond Of:
- I mentioned above that the Rockets forced 21 turnovers tonight, but they only converted those TO's into 20 points. That's just 0.95 points per turnover.
- The Rockets bench (Josh Smith, Pablo Prigioni, Corey Brewer and Clint Capela) combined to play 79 minutes tonight. They combined for 12 points and 11 rebounds. Thats a Per48 of 5.46 points and 5.005 rebounds. That's just one night though and I was feeling kind of analytic.
- The Rockets were out rebounded by 15.
Things I Hated:
- DeMarcus Cousins had a field day in the paint. 24 points, 21 boards and six blocks on the defensive side. He also had 10 assists to round out his triple-double.
- The Rockets gave up 68 points in the paint. That's a season high. I was scared to look up most points in the paint by a team in a single game.
- Joey Dorsey.
- Jason Terry's shooting.
- The Rockets inability to put the Kings away. The Rockets had leads of 19 points (in the second), 15 points (in the third) and 14 points (in the fourth). Yet, the Kings had every opportunity to win the game. They probably could have won if they shot a few more layups. There was absolutely no resistance in the middle of the floor by the Rockets.
Rockets are in Dallas tomorrow night to take on the Mavericks. Game is on TNT at 7:30PM local time.