Houston Rockets embarrassed by the bottom tier Cavaliers

The Houston Rockets have now lost two straight games after dropping what should’ve been a freebie to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Embarrassing. The Houston Rockets just lost to the (now) 4-14 Cleveland Cavaliers to drop their second game in a row on the road trip. This one was quite ugly, let’s get right into it.

The Rockets definitely did not come to play, to say the least. They obviously did not value an opponent in Cleveland that has now played three quality games in a row against good teams. They pushed the Lakers to the late fourth quarter, beat the 76ers last night and finally beat the Rockets tonight.

No Chris Paul definitely hurt tonight. His presence on both ends, especially defense, was needed. Rookie Colin Sexton went off for his best game of the season, dropping 29 points and 4 rebounds on an extremely efficient 14/21 shooting. They disrespected his midrange game and he made them pay.

Let’s just get into the stats, I guess.

The stats

James Harden: 40 points, 13 assists, 14/30 shooting

Eric Gordon: 28 points, 8/16 shooting (5/11 from 3)

Clint Capela: 12 points (4/4 shooting), 10 rebounds, 4 blocks

Why the Rockets lost

Before we get into the negatives, we’ll acknowledge a couple of positives. James Harden and Eric Gordon came to play on offense and were very solid on that end of the court. It’s nice to see, especially out of EG. If he continues to play like that when CP3 is back, the Rockets are going to win a lot of games.

Alright, let’s get into these negatives.

Clint Capela took just four shots all night after completely dominating the past two games. How does that happen? I know that Chris Paul was out and that he feeds him buckets, but he still deserves more attempts.

The bench was…oh boy. It was bad. Michael Carter-Williams received minutes with Paul out, but thankfully just four. He was a -7 in those minutes, somehow.

Gary Clark isn’t a scorer, so that left just Gerald Green off the bench to produce. He took only 5 shots, scoring 6 points. It was essentially just Harden, Gordon & Capela scoring for the Rockets tonight.

The defense was pathetic pretty much all around. James Harden focused too much on offense, trying to get them back in the game, and not enough on guarding wide open midrange shots by Sexton. Eric Gordon was a step slow despite the solid game on offense. Gerald Green gives it his all but is not a great defender.

All-in-all, it was an embarrassing effort by the Rockets. Let’s hope they don’t do the same against the Wizards on Monday.