The Houston Rockets are considered heavy favorites to make a deep run for the Larry O’Brien trophy, but their most recent losses rained on what was a dominant display of terrific basketball. Mike D’Antoni tried to clear the air and doubled down on his ultra-offensive tactic.
Luis Ortiz of Telemundo Houston uploaded a video of D’Antoni doubling down on the small-ball strategy that he crafted for his Rockets. He believes that their defeat to the Los Angeles Clippers is but a “blip on the road” as they iron out the creases in their game plan in preparation for the playoffs.
“This is just one blip on the road” Mike D’Antoni says rockets will continue to play their style of basketball #rockets pic.twitter.com/eOflu56v6R
— Luis Ortiz (@OrtizSportsTV) March 6, 2020
However, D’Antoni wasn’t so blind as to just ignore the terrible performance the Rockets put up recently. He also noted that his team’s struggles didn’t just happen against one of the top teams in the West.
As shown by LA Times reporter Andrew Greif’s copy of the press conference transcript, he noted that their problems have bothered them since their game against the New York Knicks:
“We couldn’t get the crowd into it because there was nothing to get into. We were just bad from the beginning. (It was) one of those nights where you try to learn from if you can. It started in New York; it didn’t start tonight. We were that bad in New York with our energy and I thought we came out about the same way. These guys smacked us.”
Surprisingly, the Rockets weren’t that extremely behind the Clippers when it came to rebounds (51 to LA’s 57), but their inability to stop anyone from scoring ultimately cost them the dub. There’s still a month left before the playoffs begin, but D’Antoni has a lot of things to sort out.
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