Rockets must solve their Kevin Durant problem to be title contender

As the Houston Rockets ground out their first win of the season against the Brooklyn Nets on Monday night, their offense looked truly dynamic for the first time with Kevin Durant in their midst, shooting 57.6% from the floor and looking like a team that has a serious chance to compete in the Western Conference.

Yet, in the two games in which the Rockets have needed to play clutch minutes, they have fallen short, and the cause of this might be their over-dependence on Durant to elevate the team's offense when it is most needed.

While, undoubtedly, this is the reason Durant was dealt for in the first place, the Rockets cannot build a bona-fide championship contender with just a singular offensive threat. Instead, they need to diversify their attack routinely, modeling the type of game they played against the Nets, in order to have a genuine shot at a deep playoff run.

The Rockets need other players to step up outside of Kevin Durant when it matters the most

Last season, as Houston soared to the second seed in the Western Conference, one glaring flaw still remained: their lack of a go-to scorer in clutch minutes.

Although Alperen Sengun emerged as a truly elite center last season, defenses were able to focus too much of their energy on him when games came down to the wire, and Sengun is not yet a player who is unfazed by pressure.

Therefore, the organization's move to trade for Durant represented a blockbuster attempt to fix this issue. Durant, even at age 37, is still one of the most lethal scorers in the game, and his numbers with the Rockets have borne this out thus far. Through his first three regular season games with the organization, Durant has averaged 26.3 points while shooting 50% from the field and 90% from the free-throw line.

Yet, the team still cannot rely entirely upon Durant to elevate them into championship contention, and their young core must become more consistent performers in order to give them a shot at being that type of team.

When Durant sat most of the fourth quarter against the Oklahoma City Thunder as a result of his foul trouble, the team failed to secure the win, ultimately allowing the game to go to double-overtime and losing in heartbreaking fashion.

When Durant played almost the entire fourth quarter against the Detroit Pistons, he looked stellar, scoring 14 points and getting to the free-throw line eight times just in that quarter alone. Yet, the rest of the team only mustered 11 points throughout the entire quarter, and the Rockets dropped a winnable game: 111-115.

On the one hand, the team can, and must, depend upon Durant to take over games at times. That is what his pedigree and his skill-set demands.

Yet, if the team is entirely dependent upon him to close out every narrow lead or every tough game, they will not make it very far in a stacked Western Conference. Players such as Sengun and Jabari Smith Jr. need to step up and help diversify the offense, and they must do so quickly.