There is losing, and then there is what the Houston Rockets did Tuesday. Opposite the Brooklyn nets on the road, the rockets coughed two different multi-score leads in the last 90 seconds in a loss of 99-97. The biggest blunder came in the last 10 seconds.
Down 97-93, the nets tied the ball to Cameron Johnson, who made a catch-and-shoot 3-Pointer to cut the lead to one point. The missiles were still on course for a victory, as long as they had bound the ball and made their free throws, but an incoming pass from Amen Thompson to Fred VanVleet bounced in the hands of D’Angelo Russell.
Russell sank the 3-Pointer with 3.4 seconds to send Barclays Center in a frenzy.
Jalen Green proceeded to miss a last 3-pointer to save a victory.
Green had his own problem a minute earlier, as Rockets -head coach IME Udoka shouted: “What are you doing?!” After he had taken a disputed 3-Pointer instead of walking off the clock until 14 seconds, when there were 57 seconds left and Houston held a four-point lead. The missed 3-Pointer led six seconds later to a Ziaire Williams 3-Pointer for the Nets.
After the game, Udoka blamed a few things that certainly sound like something for a coach must be responsible:
“More of the same. Lack of physicality, toughness. All those things. We didn’t really deserve to win the game. Basketball gods brought us to the end.”
In the meantime, Nets Wing Keon Johnson Udoka for motivating his own team, because the coach the anger of Brooklyn Drew when he called them as a “low-level team”:
“Everyone took it personally, just because we come in and compete every day … Just to read something like that, it was just a lot of fuel on the fire.”
With the loss, the Rockets dropped four consecutive games and are now at 32-18, good for the third in the Western Conference. However, they only separate five games and the 27-23 Minnesota Timberwolves for the first play-in place in the west.
