Warriors stuff coal in Rockets’ stockings in 116-104 loss

The Rockets close their west coast road trip with a disappointing 116-104 loss to their archnemesis Warriors.

Some things appear to never change and the Warriors have gotten the Rockets number once again.

This loss certainly is not James Harden’s fault, as he led the way with 24 points on 9-18 shooting.

The Rockets led by 13 points at the peak of this game in the second quarter and led by four points going into the break.

However, the Warriors opened the ball with a shifty double team on Harden at halfcourt in the second half, forcing the ball outside of Harden’s hands.

The first beneficiary — Russell Westbrook.

Westbrook has looked fantastic in the past two weeks or so, but tonight was a far cry from what we have seen in this stretch of games.

Brodie had a team-high 30 points on an inefficient 11-32 from the field, including shooting zilch for eight from beyond.

The Rockets made just 37 of their 100 shots from the floor. If you take Harden’s shots out of the percentage, the team shot an abysmal 34.1 percent.

Danuel House Jr. was the next leading scorer, making five threes on 12 attempts, good for 18 points.

And the bench? Austin Rivers went a cold 1-5 from beyond and Ben McLemore shot 2-9.

It appeared that everyone was simply ice cold on Christmas Day. Everyone has off days, but today the Rockets decided to all shoot poorly in unison, which is a recipe to lose against an 8-24 team.

Props have to be given to the Warriors however, who won their third straight game with today’s win.

Damion Lee scored a team-high 22 and grabbed a team-high 15 rebounds. Draymond Green also had one of his better games today with 20 points on 8-14 shooting to go with 11 rebounds.

Houston had some questionable whistles in the second half, but at the end of the day, the Rockets scored just 36 points in the second half. You cannot expect to win with those kind of numbers.

Games like these happen throughout the season, where you can’t buy a bucket. And I’m sure that the stage the Rockets were on today will exaggerate what this game was.

It should not take away from the fact that this very team beat the Clippers on the road not one week ago and that. Or the fact that they have won eight of 11 since “that” Spurs loss nearly a month ago.

This is easily the worst loss since that game and the Rockets responded with eight wins in 11 games, so I don’t think it’s time to hit the panic button. It’s time to move on to the Nets and look forward.

The Rockets host the Nets Friday to complete the season series. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. CT.