Deandre Ayton: “Rockets were triple-teaming, I was diming everybody”

When the Houston Rockets last faced the Phoenix Suns, the Rockets had a performance to forget. Deandre Ayton seems to think the result had alot to do with his performance, which is laughable.

The Houston Rockets made headlines when they decided to get rid of the traditional big man, although the Golden State Warriors won multiple titles by doing the exact same thing. The Rockets were 10-1 in the 11 games they played without Clint Capela, which got lost in all the hoopla.

Although the Rockets went on a six-game win streak shortly after acquiring Robert Covington, they went 8-6 in their 14 games with RoCo on the roster. One of those games came against the Phoenix Suns, in which the Rockets were defeated by 36 points, as they lost 127-91.

Granted, the Rockets were coming off an emotional victory over the Los Angeles Lakers, and they were playing without Russell Westbrook, but that’s no excuse for a 36-point loss. The Rockets were outrebounded 51-29, which is a deficit that will be nearly impossible for anyone to overcome.

The Rockets were also outperformed from long-range, as they only hit 22.9 percent of their 3-pointers, compared to the Suns’ 48.4 percent. Although that’s how the game went, Suns big man Deandre Ayton had a much different version of events, as he recently spoke with Chicago Bulls star Zach LaVine during the NBA’s players-only 2K tournament.

"I was diming everybody. They was triple-teaming me."

Deandre Ayton doesn't have a problem with the Rockets' small ball defense. pic.twitter.com/EcOfxI5MK5

— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) April 4, 2020

Let’s see, where do we start here? We’d have to assume he’s referring to him playing facilitator, but he only had four assists, which doesn’t exactly live up to the claim that he was “diming everybody.” Ayton also had three turnovers as well, in just 23 minutes of action.

Ayton also scored a grand total of 12 points, while also grabbing six rebounds. Granted, he did shoot 5-of-8, which gave him a field goal percentage of 62.5 percent, but that’s also a tad bit skewed considering how he attempted such a low number of shots. And for his claim that he was triple-teamed, that’s also not true.

It’s clear that this was an incredibly erroneous claim by Ayton, as he was far from the reason the Rockets lost that day. But at least he gave us all some comic relief during the crisis we’ve all been dealing with.