NBA: Desolate Rockets sink in Utah, Celtics triumph

With an embarrassing performance, the Houston Rockets sank against the Utah Jazz, although they lost their center after a few minutes. The Phoenix Suns also suffered a heavy defeat in Portland. The Boston Celtics with Daniel Theis have again won another victory.

The Celtics find meanwhile nevertheless better and better into the trace. Over the past six games, Boston has even produced the best net rating in the league, with the Knicks now taking their fourth consecutive win. The duel against the Knicks was especially interesting because Brad Stevens stayed with his changed Starting Five, although Jaylen Brown was actually a nominal starter.

Brown had to sit out last and was replaced by Marcus Smart. Now the Shooting Guard was healthy again, but still came – without a minute limit – from the bench. And he handled it pretty well once: In 25 minutes from the bench Brown came on strong 21 points at 7/10 from the field. This made him an important part of an already strong Celtics collective.

The Celtics had the game under control most of the time, they were already leading with 11 points at the break and in the second half the lead continued to swell. The Knicks didn’t have much to oppose them, even though Tim Hardaway Jr. (22 points) struggled as usual. When doubts arose for a short time, the Celtics always had the right answer.

Besides Brown, Kyrie Irving (22 points) and Al Horford (19, plus 12 rebounds) were the most successful, a total of seven Celtics landed in Double Figures. And Daniel Theis was one of them: The German Big Man was allowed 17 minutes in this game and scored 10 points (4/7 FG) and 3 rebounds.

There was still a drop of bitterness, though, as Aron Baynes twisted his ankle and could not finish the game, although the Australian himself then remarked that it was probably not so bad. And Stevens’ conclusion was nevertheless positive: “I don’t see all the problems we had at the beginning of the season anymore,” said the Celtics coach.

With three defeats in a row, the Blazers were quite shaky in the end. That’s when the Suns, probably the worst team of the season, made a guest appearance in Portland – and lived up to this “reputation”: The Suns presented themselves pitifully weak, especially in the first quarter. A total of 9 points were scored by the guests in the first quarter, while the Blazers scored 34 – the game was already decided after twelve minutes at the latest. Almost the whole game Portland was in front with 30 points.

The best Blazers man was once again Damian Lillard, who in 28 minutes relaxed 25 points (8/14 FG) and 8 Assists reached, while his neighbor C.J. McCollum had to miss in this game. Otherwise, curiously enough, only two other host players scored double-digit, but one of them was right: Jake Layman (24 points, 10/13 FG) delivered the best game of his career so far.

Like Lillard, the Swingman could not be stopped in the first quarter and sunk his first six throws. Also Zach Collins delivered Double Figures from the bench (10 points), Jusuf Nurkic again came on 9 points and 14 rebounds.

The Suns again lacked Devin Booker, so the offense was even more harmless than usual. No.1-Pick Deandre Ayton was also used from the bank for the first time in his career as he was not completely up to speed. For 11 points and 8 rebounds from the bank it was still enough. Top scorers for the Suns were Troy Daniels (15) and Josh Jackson (14), however, none of them changed anything at the seventh defeat in a row.

It didn’t take three minutes for this game between two disappointing top teams of the Western Conference to change decisively: 2:47 minutes had been played when Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert took his second foul, got upset loudly about it, wiped a cup from the commentary table – and was kicked out by the referees. The fans in Salt Lake City were understandably similarly enthusiastic about it as jazz coach Quin Snyder, while Gobert, on the other hand, greeted them a few minutes later via Instagram from the jazz power room, where he watched the rest of the game.

By the third quarter at the latest, the Frenchman could finally relax. Even without him, Utah made a mess of a bad Rockets team. James Harden and Chris Paul were well defended throughout the game and had to work extremely hard for their points. And there was hardly any support for the two star guards. In total, the Rockets met only 8/36 of their three players and lost 22 balls, with Harden (15 points, 5/16 FG) producing 7 of these turnovers alone.

After a good intermediate sprint towards the end of the second quarter, Houston at least went into the second half with chances (45:51), but right at the beginning of the third quarter they were finally under the wheels. Utah opened with a 15-2 run before Mike D’Antoni finally took a time-out, but it didn’t help. All in all the run went with 38:11 (!) to the hosts.

The Jazz were finally able to balance their balance, even without Gobert they reminded much more of the strong last season and bribed with beautiful team basketball. Five players scored double digits, with Goberts Backup Derrick Favors playing particularly well with 24 points and 10 rebounds from the bench. Also Joe Ingles (18 points) made a strong game again.

That couldn’t really be said about anyone at the Rockets. In addition to top scorer Harden and Michael Carter-Williams (13), Paul and Clint Capela each scored 12 points, but they also lacked the power to make their mark. Isaiah Hartenstein was not in the squad, the German rookie is currently in the G-League Team in Rio Grande.