Takeaways From Houston Rockets Defeat in Charlotte

A look back at 3 takeaways from the Houston Rockets loss to the Charlotte Hornets.

Tough loss last night. With some of the squad, (mostly the starters) demonstrating a clear case of dead legs the Houston Rockets had to rely heavily on their bench who despite doing a awesome job and scoring way more than half of the teams’ points (68 total) couldn’t match the inspired Marvin Williams and Kemba Walker.

It’s also worth noting that shooting threes has once again done nothing to enhance the team chances of victory with the Rockets knocking down only 19% of their treys. On the other side, it proved to be key for the Hornets win. They registered a more than respectful 48% from beyond the arc.

Three Things We Saw

Dwight Howard’s Command of the Paint.

Dwight Howard was the one starter that actually contributed last night. Had the Rockets won he would’ve been instrumental. There were two problems though. First the Houston Rockets didn’t feed Howard enough, he had a 8-for-10 field goal average last night. Most times he had the ball, this happened:

The only answer for Howard that the Hornets had as we saw above was fouling. One more time, take a look at how he easily handles the offensive rebound with the “-and one play”.

That was solved by the Hornets when they started hammering Howard below the rim, but no foul was called. None. Those two -and ones were the only fouls called on him.

James Harden’s Bad Night.

I have absolutely no doubt that if James Harden played his usual game the Houston Rockets would have left North Carolina with the win.

Not only did James Harden have trouble on offense knocking down his shots, but on defense he was late to contest shots and Marvin Williams took advantage of that the whole night. Below you can see his first of the only two field goals he had last night:

Harden was 0-for-5 from the three-point line and 2-for-14 overall shooting. Yikes!

But everyone, including the stars are entitled to the occasional bad night.

Corey Brewer’s Resurgence (?)

As I said last night, the jury is still out (for me) regarding Corey Brewer’s late surge. But we have to at least recognize he is playing much better basketball lately.

It’s also not only a matter of points, Brewer has been registering much more effective field goal percentages. Over the last five games he has a 53% shooting percentage. Finally his ability for leading the fast break and finishing with the easy layup is looking much better in this last games.

It remains to be seen whether this form by Brewer could go on even further.

If it does then the Rockets really could present some threat in the final games of the season and the playoffs.

Next: East coast trip launches Houston Rockets up ladder

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