[ad_1]
NEW YORK – Having had all he could handle, not being able to get the Rockets out of their early season funk, Chris Paul had to share his thoughts, unfiltered and sometimes unprintable, with coé around him friday night.
He asked the Rocket coaches – who, given his mood, could have looked more like an order – to retire. This would be a talk of intervention delay reserved for players.
The Nets' lead was 14 with three minutes left in the first period. The Nets had 71.9% of their shots, reducing the Rockets to traffic cones on the side of the road.
Paul decided that no adjustments, no changes to a program that coaches could offer could make the necessary change.
From that moment, the game has changed. The defense has arrived. Paul and Carmelo Anthony lit up the Barclays Center until the Rockets' four-game losing streak was gone, replaced by a 119-111 win, which the Rockets desperately needed.
"We have played a lot of games now and the coaches are trying to make shenanigans," said Paul. "We just said," Stay away for a second, let's talk about it. I mean, at one point, it's enough.
"We talked about it as a team. "What are we going to do?" They just scored each time. We just needed that. We came together and organized a few stops.
Paul had been scorching from the first minutes of the match, looking for his shot more aggressively than the entire season en route to reach 32 points (for only his fifth game at 30 points with the Rockets) and 11 assists.
Anthony, in his first game in his hometown of Brooklyn since he's playing for the Knicks, has made 9 shots out of 12, including 6 out of 9 on 3 points, to score 28 points in 31 minutes on the bench.
Reaching heights
Both had their highest season, with Eric Gordon's 21 points equal. But the peaks of the season would not have been enough if the Rockets had not reactivated their defense.
"At break time, we were talking, screaming, cursing," Anthony said. "It was something we had to understand. We did it. It was one of those difficult games we had to face, settle and that's what we did. "
As of the end of the second quarter, the Nets shot four out of 20 shots in 10 minutes to end the first half and start the second half when the Rockets reduced their deficit by 14 points to a seven-point lead. The Rockets never dragged again. The transformation was obvious.
The Nets had so easily ripped the Rockets to start the game that they had more points to score in the first quarter than they had collected a quarter since December 2016.
That would be more than what they would have in the rest of the match, going from almost 72% of their shots to just 35.8% the rest of the time.
D'Antoni praises his desire
"We have found a will and a desire," said coach Mike D'Antoni. "It was mostly character. There was a pause where things were ready to let go and Chris called them and they said, "Hey guys, it's about us. It's not about coaches. They can come in and say something. It's about us. We will have to keep or not, guys. They decided to meet people.
"We put other things in there. It was a little hybrid. It's better.
"But I really think it starts with wanting. They found in themselves to do it. "
Veterans mobilize
The Rockets needed Paul and Anthony, in what should be the last game before James Harden's return, to revive the offense. No ad hoc temporal discussion could have done it – or was necessary.
"We've been discussing it for the last two days," said Anthony. "We had an intense practice and really set the tone. He postponed.
Still, the Rockets needed their best half of the season defense. Arrived at the point, there was nothing that D'Antoni could say that had not been said. Paul expressed his opinion and changed everything.
"They can tell us all the plans they want; it's up to us to determine how we're going to stop, "said Paul. "We talk, we communicate, it's not about me trying to belittle him or anything like that, we're all a team, and if we can not communicate like that, we should not do it. anyway. "
twitter.com/jonathan_feigen
[ad_2]
Source link
