The Puzzling Decision That Cost The Rockets

The Puzzling Decision That Cost The Rockets

In last night’s game, the Rockets were on verge of tying the series until Steve Kerr enabled Eay Udoka into a puzzling decision that ended up costing them the game. Now, most people are going to talk about Draymond Green stop on Alper and Shingun, but this was a game where Udoka got too fixated on one thing and it cost him the win. For some context, Alper Shigun was 3 for 12 from the field when he matched up with Draymond Green. A big reason is Draymond could absorb that initial hit. So Shigun can’t get close to the basket because he can’t win that physical battle. Shigun often settle for quick shots which were playing right into the Warriors hands. However, where the Rockets had an edge in this series is when they play the double big lineup of Shingon and Steven Adams. Because Draymond is usually the Warriors center, now he has to guard Steven Adams, which gives Shenon a much better matchup. Besides Draymond Green, no one on the Warriors could really battle with Shigun’s physicality. They tried numerous defenders on him, but Shon was way more comfortable backing down each guy and became the Rockets primary scorer. In addition, Draymond Green found himself in foul trouble. In the second quarter, he picked up four fouls, including this one on Tari Eid, where he blatantly hits him in the head, and he’s lucky that the rest didn’t eject him. Then early in the third, he picked up his fifth foul when Thompson fooled him on a pump fake and he had to sit out for a pretty long time. With Green out, Shagun and Adams abused the Warriors in the paint. Shagon would find the mismatch and post them up and Adams would wait for misses to get the offensive rebounds. But more importantly, Adams was the Rockets defensive anchor. The Warriors don’t have many shooters, so Adams could just roam in the paint. As a result, he would just wait for the Warriors at the rim and then contest these shots. In the fourth quarter alone, he had blocked three shots and the Rockets were a plus 16 when he was on the floor. Because of Adams, the Rockets were nursing a one-point lead with just under 5 minutes to go. Without any real answers, Steve Kerr threw a curveball when he subbed out Draymond Green for Cavon Looney. Yes, he was in foul trouble, but the real reason was to get Looney to intentionally foul Steven Adams to try and get him out of the game. Adams is only a 46% free throw shooter, and after he fouls him the second time, Udoka took him out of the game. So, with just Shenon on the floor, the Warriors can now match Draymond Green with him, which is a matchup that the Rockets don’t want. What Ydoka did was wait for the Rockets to get to the bonus to take Adams out and then wait till the last two minutes to bring him back in. The reason is if you try Hacker Shack under 2 minutes, you get free throws and maintain possession. Now, most people understandably thought Udoka should have kept Adams in the game and see if he could at least make his free throws before taking him out. But I actually think there are a few ways his move can be justified. First, Draymond Green is playing with five fouls. Because he’s the only guy that could stop Shingun, this puts a lot of pressure on him to play good defense without fouling. Now, Draymond is one of the best defenders ever. But remember, he actually fouled out pretty recently in the plane, so it is possible. However, the bigger reason is that Fred Van Vle was also on a heater. He had already made six threes in this game on really good efficiency. So if you want to think about the numbers, Adams shoots 46% at the free throw line. So that would be just under one point per possession. But if Van Vleet or Shigon can make just one shot, especially a three, that’s worth multiple trips to the free throw line from Steven Adams. So you’re creating a higher margin of error by just letting your best two scorers try and go to work. And that’s exactly what happened. Shagun and Van Vleet run a triple handoff and he knocks down the three to make it a four-point game. At this point, even with Adams taken out, the Rockets were in a really good spot. They’re up four and have four timeouts to spare. But maybe most importantly, they had only committed one foul in the fourth quarter at this point. And this is where I thought Udoka missed the mark. Let’s break this down. Udoka had a few options. He can either play it straight up or figure out how to get Adams back in the game for defense. Remember, Adams had also been dominating defensively in the fourth quarter, so having him in at all would have been great. And with three team fouls to spare, the Rockets could have intentionally fouled to get Adams back in on defense. If Udoko was concerned about Adams shooting free throws, he had the time outs to take him out after the defensive possession. Now, the intentional foul didn’t happen, but he had a chance to get Adams back in when Thompson tipped the ball out of bounds. He ended up not doing that, and at this point, I believe that Udoka was too hung up by Adam’s poor free throw shooting and didn’t think about how Adams had anchored the defense for the whole night. Not surprisingly, the Rockets defense got picked apart with no rim protection, and the Warriors ended up going on a 70-0 run to retake the lead. It wasn’t until the Rockets threw this ball in the back court that Adams checked back in with under two minutes to go. As predicted, the Rockets got a stop and Shagon now has Jimmy Butler on him. He runs that inverted pick and roll of Van Vleet with two guys going to Shingon. Van Vleet is open for three and he ties the game. On the other end, Butler tries driving on Shingun and gets cut off. Curry’s on the wing and gets doubled. So Butler has to take this desperate three, but Dylan Brooks put his arm on his hip and gets called for the foul. Now the most costic thing is that Butler gets three free throws. But unlike Udoka, Steve Kerr took advantage of the dead ball by bringing Cavon Looney back to match up with Steven Adams, which then means Draymond can now go back to Shingun. So with Butler making all three free throws, the Rockets want to try the same inverted pick and roll because Van Vleet just made a three. The Warriors switch it to give Shingun that mismatch and he’s able to get to the rim to make it a one-point game. On the ensuing inbound, Curry tries to go at Een, but he misses the floater. And the Rockets now have a chance to win this game again. Steve Ger brings Looney back in to guard Steven Adams, meaning Draymond is on Shenon. The Rockets go back to that inverted pick and roll, but GP2 holds Van Fleet, so he can’t set the screen. So, it’s a one-on-one with Green. And just like most of the game, Shenon never got close to the basket, and Butler comes in with a fantastic rebound to seal this game. While Steve Ger’s hack tactic wasn’t the only reason they won, it forced Yudoka to make a decision and helped tip the momentum back in the Warriors favor. But in reality, this is an example of a coach not really thinking about all of his options because he was too focused on one thing, which ended up costing the Rockets a must-win game. So, hope you

The Houston Rockets were on verge of winning this game until Ime Udoka was coerced into a decision that cost them the game. We go over the decision, why it happened and how it ended up costing them the game.

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Produced By Daniel Li
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