After months of offseason, training camp and preseason, the Houston Rockets got the 2015-16 NBA season started at the Toyota Center on Wednesday night. Unfortunately, the heavily favored hometown Rockets were unable to fully fight back from an early deficit, and the visiting Denver Nuggets ended up victorious in a surprising 105-85 blowout.
The Nuggets jumped out to a quick lead, and were leading 10-1 with 7:30 left in the first quarter by the time the Rockets finally hit a field goal. That field goal was a Ty Lawson three-pointer, which was the first field goal in his Rocket career for the former Nugget.
The Rockets calmed down a bit after Lawson hit that three, and forward Corey Brewer showed some flash on defense with this block of rookie Nugget point guard Emmanuel Mudiay as he drove to the basket on a fast break.
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The Rockets mostly treaded water in the second, never quite retaking the lead but not letting the Nuggets pull away.
The Rockets were able to keep it close for most of the first three quarters, trailing just 65-61 until Denver went on a run that started with a Danilo Gallinari dunk with 2:45 left in the third. That emphatic dunk followed an almost-one minute stretch where the Rockets recovered six offensive rebounds and came away with nothing.
By the end of the third, it was a 76-63 deficit, and coming away with nothing after that flurry seemed to deflate the Rockets.
Houston couldn’t hit a shot to save their lives on this night, shooting just 34.5 percent from the floor and 22.9 percent from three-point range. The three primary culprits for this rough shooting mark were James Harden, Trevor Ariza and Corey Brewer, who combined for 10-of-32 shooting and 4-for-22 from long-range. Needless to say, all three players will shoot better in the future.
A bright spot for the Rockets came in the form of Clint Capela. The young man was forced into the starter’s role in Dwight Howard‘s absence due to suspension and performed admirably on offense, as you can see in this dunk off a pick and roll with James Harden.
Capela’s final line showed nine points on 4-of-7 shooting, and seven rebounds (with six of them on the offensive end) and he added two steals and two blocks. While Howard will be welcomed back with open arms on Friday against the Golden State Warriors, it’s comforting for the Rockets’ faithful to know that they have a competent backup center in the form of Capela.
While we’re talking about the young man, check out his block on Joffrey Lauvergne. He covered a lot of space and got up quickly, but we knew athleticism wasn’t going to be a problem with Capela.
On the defensive side of things, Denver was efficient in their shooting. The Nuggets hit 50.6 percent from the field and 48.1 percent from long-range. It stands to reason that the offense and the defense will improve and that to some degree this was just one of those nights, but the Rockets need to be better.
The Rockets forced Mudiay into an incredible 11 turnovers in his NBA debut, with seven coming via steals. In spite of that big number, he still put up 17 points and nine assists to go with five rebounds.
As for roster notes for Houston, there were a couple of things worth addressing. First off, there were only three players off the bench who played more than 11 minutes in spite of being shorthanded with the absence of Howard. Rookie Montrezl Harrell played 15 minutes, Brewer played 29 minutes, Patrick Beverley played 21 minutes and Jason Terry played 10.
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A personal source of curiousity for me, K.J. McDaniels, only saw the floor for the last 1:29 of the game. If he didn’t see meaningful action in this game, it’s reasonable to suspect that he hasn’t yet earned his way into the rotation after all, and that may be a problem for McDaniels.
Relatedly, first-round pick Sam Dekker also only played the final 1:29, and it will be interesting to see how he interacts with the rotation going forward after playing 18.5 minutes per game in the preseason.
With this one in the books, it’s time to look forward to a rematch against the defending champion Golden State Warriors on Friday. The Warriors ended the Rockets season in the Western Conference Finals last year, and the Warriors are the team everybody in the NBA models themselves after.
If there was an element of playing down to your opponents’ level in this game that came back to bite the Rockets, it stands to reason that they might kick it into gear against the cream of the crop.
They’d better hope so, because a repeat of this effort against Stephen Curry and the Warriors will lead to an absolute bloodbath.
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