Rockets lose to Pacers despite dominating one statistical category

Folks, it's officially time to worry about the Houston Rockets. They've lost 11 of their last 16 contests. This is legitimately concerning.

Sure, the Rockets are still the Western Conference's fifth seed. They're still ahead of schedule relative to preseason expectations. It would take a catastrophe for this team to miss the postseason.

Still, it's always worrisome to watch a win-now team lose so many games. Questions about the fit between this young core are becoming increasingly legitimate. Questions about their ability to win a playoff game - let alone a series - are even more pressing.

The blame can be distributed in several ways. There's one area where it doesn't belong. The Rockets seldom fail to outrebound their opponents:

In Tuesday's contest against Indiana, they dominated that area.

Rockets dominate glass in loss

The Rockets snatched 58 rebounds to Indiana's 35.

Amen Thompson chipped in 12, and Tari Eason had 14. Ime Udoka ran massive lineups featuring Eason at the 2, with Alperen Sengun at the 4 next to Steven Adams. The results were largely positive. Those lineups asserted themselves.

Sure, rebounding does not unilaterally determine the outcome of a basketball game. That's an utterly dominant discrepancy. It raises a question:

How on earth did Houston lose this game?

Rockets struggle to score vs Pacers

Let's put it succinctly: everything else.

The Rockets were 9/30 from long-range. That's perhaps the most telling stat, but you had to watch this one to understand where the Rockets fell short:

Their offense was anemic.

Something has to give. When Alperen Sengun has the ball on the low block, the rest of the Rockets need to move without the ball. If Udoka can't train them to do so effectively, there's little value in building an offense around Sengun's ability to score in the post. Instead, we saw Rockets converging on Sengun:

At times, it looked like they were trying to guard him.

Otherwise, this team was plagued by inefficiency. Jalen Green was 4/13. Dillon Brooks was 4/16. Jabari Smith Jr. was 4/11.

Sengun himself was 12/19. He also chipped in 9 rebounds and 7 assists. If the Rockets handed out a game ball for this one, it would go to him. Eason also chipped in 16 points on 7/14 shooting to go with those 14 rebounds.

That's about it on the positive front. This was an ugly game. If the Rockets can't leverage a massive rebounding advantage like this one to get a win, guess what?

That's deeply concerning.