Rockets blow 4-point lead in 5 seconds in meltdown loss to Nets
There is losing, and then there is what the Houston Rockets did on Tuesday. Facing the Brooklyn Nets on the road, the Rockets coughed up two different multi-score leads in the final 90 seconds in a 99-97 loss. The biggest gaffe came in the final 10 seconds.
Down 97-93, the Nets inbounded the ball to Cameron Johnson, who made a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer to cut the lead to one point. The Rockets were still on track for a win as long as they inbounded the ball and made their free throws, but an inbounds pass from Amen Thompson to Fred VanVleet bounced away and into the hands of D’Angelo Russell.
Russell sank the 3-pointer with 3.4 seconds left to send Barclays Center into a frenzy.
Jalen Green proceeded to miss a last-gasp 3-pointer to save a win.
Green had his own issue a minute earlier, as Rockets head coach Ime Udoka screamed “What are you doing?!” after he took a contested 3-pointer rather than run up to 14 seconds off the clock, when there were 57 seconds remaining and Houston held a four-point lead. The missed 3-pointer led to a Ziaire Williams 3-pointer six seconds later for the Nets.
After the game, Udoka blamed a few things that sure sound like something a coach should be responsible for:
“More of the same. Lack of physicality, toughness. All those things. We didn’t really deserve to win the game. Basketball Gods got us at the end.”
Meanwhile, Nets wing Keon Johnson was crediting Udoka for motivating his own team, as the coach drew Brooklyn’s ire when he referred to them as a “low-level team”:
“Everybody took it personal, just because we come in every day and compete… Just to read something like that, it was just a lot of fuel on the fire.”
With the loss, the Rockets have dropped four straight games and now sit at 32-18, good for third in the Western Conference. However, only five games separate them and the 27-23 Minnesota Timberwolves for the first play-in spot in the West.
