The Houston Rockets (52-14) give James Harden a break and win against Dallas Mavericks (21-46) but still loose. This makes them the first team in the West to secure a play-off place. The Mavs keep up for a half time, but then break in completely.
If a team can cope with the loss of an MVP favourite as well as the rockets, it must be a contender. Even though his opponent was just Dallas, it was impressive how Houston compensated for James Harden’s absence. The beard took a break, but it was only a precautionary measure with regard to its knee.
“Chris Paul (24 points, 12 assists) contemplated” But this gives the other players the opportunity to take on responsibility and take center stage “Apart from the multiple all-star Eric Gordon: The reigning Sixth Man of the Year moved into the Starting Five for Harden and used this as so often for a strong performance.
With 26 points and 6/11 three players, he was the top scorer of the game and played such a big part that the Texans were the first team in the West to make a playoff place, but I would rather have the top seed,”Gordon explained afterwards. Good for him: The Warriors lost to the Timberwolves shortly before and now have two more defeats than the Rockets. In addition, Houston belongs to the tiebreaker in a direct duel.
Meanwhile, the Mavericks are likely to be annoyed by a devastating second half. For the break tee (47:48) the matter was still balanced, but afterwards nothing more ran together. In the second 24 minutes of the game, they only scored 13 of their 44 throws from the field and a single threesome in 13 attempts for a total of 35 points.
Only Dirk Nowitkzi (13 points in total) and Dwight Powell (20) showed some resistance. Both scored 9 points each in the second half. Harrison Barnes, Yogi Ferrell or Rookie Dennis Smith were total failures, Maxi Kleber played only 2 minutes. Wesley Matthews was injured.
Coach Rick Carlisle didn’t want to blame his team too much and instead paid respect to the opponent:”They are a great team, even without hards. They did their thing and we didn’t hit enough throws.”