Written by Bryan Gibberman at Bloguin
It’s starting to look like deja vu all over again for the Houston Rockets. Last season they won 56 games and advanced to the Western Conference Finals while dealing with all sorts of injuries.
Dwight Howard played in 41 games, Terrence Jones 33, Patrick Beverley 56 and Donatas Motiejunas 71 — they fought through it using mash units and an MVP-type season from James Harden.
We’re only five games into 2015-’16, and the Rockets are dealing with more of the same. Dwight Howard has missed two games and Terrence Jones has sat out three. Howard doesn’t look 100 percent despite being effective when playing. There’s no indication when Motiejunas is going to return from his back injury, which required season-ending surgery in 2014-’15.
With Harden returning to form, the Rockets were able to pull out a 110-105 win against the Oklahoma City Thunder at the Toyota Center on Monday. The “Beard” exploded for 37 points on 12-of-26 shooting in 37 minutes. In the opening three losses Harden, made four threes on 25 attempts; he connected on 4-12 threes opposite his old team. His shooting slumped again in Wednesday’s win over the Orlando Magic, but I’m still not concerned about Harden.
Last season, the team needed random contributions from a once-thought-to-be-done Jason Terry, plus Tarik Black (who was eventually traded), Corey Brewer, and Pablo Prigioni. The latter two players arrived in deals. The team also signed Josh Smith midseason.
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