NBA
PREVIEW
Paul, then how about the rare guard in the league to rival
Harden’s level of ball dominance? The idea behind acquir-
ing Westbrook isn’t addressing a specific shortcoming. It’s
an adherence to a broader mode of thinking. The goal in
Houston is and always has been to flank
Harden with the most talented superstar
teammates possible. Westbrook, in this
way, is undeniable, even if Paul’s game
made for a simpler fit. Tension is the heart
of any great collaboration. Freud had
Jung. Lennon had McCartney. Basket-
ball, too, is best understood as a dialogue
between peers who push and pull on one
another, a sort of existential pick-and-roll.
There will be moments when Harden and
Westbrook struggle to unlock the best in
each other. There will be inevitable bouts
of frustration.
“I think that’s the best part about me
being here, is to be able to challenge
him and him being able to challenge
me,” Westbrook says. “To become better
players.” When Westbrook balks at taking
an open three in a practice scrimmage—a
cardinal sin of Rocketry—Harden in-
sists that he shoot next time. When an
isolation step-back later leaves Harden
deep on the wing and slow to get back
on transition defense, Westbrook chides
him for it, and both move on. The benefit
of shared history is knowing what to say
or, sometimes, when to say nothing at
all. It’s what brought Harden and West-
brook together again after all this time,
to resolve all they’ve become with what
might have been. ±quarter with an apparent Achilles injury, he left a series
tied 2–2 and the Warriors leading by just three points.
“This is our season right here,” Tucker told his teammates.
“Either we take advantage of it, or we think like we’re
just gonna win but they kick our ass.”
“It was the latter,” Tucker says, swal-
lowing his disgust. Houston allowed a
shorthanded, freelancing Golden State
team without its best player to score
36 points in the final 14 minutes, when
even a single stop could have saved their
season. “It was a lot of letdowns,” Tucker
says of the 104–99 loss. “Then, when
you come back for Game 6, either you’re
going to be resilient and tough and fight
through it, or... .” Tucker searches, and
then shrugs. “It’s hard to put in words,
even now.”
Houston has a way with the inexpli-
cable. How did the Rockets manage to
lose their edge when Durant’s injury gave
them just the break they needed? How
do you even make sense of a team miss-
ing 27 straight three-pointers, as Hous-
ton did in Game 7 of the 2018 Western
Conference finals? These are the ghosts
that contending teams are forced to live
with: unsatisfying endings chased with
unsatisfying answers. Some franchises
would have taken those losses, baffling
as they were, as reason to alter course.
“We’re not doing that here,” D’Antoni
says. “We’ll double down. We missed 27
threes in a row? We’ve gotta take 30.”
And if the Rockets couldn’t quite
break through by pairing Harden with
52SPORT S ILL US TR ATED- OC T OBER 21–28, 2019
BY THE
NUMBERSThrees attempted
by the Rockets last
season, or 498 more
than they took in
the first 11 seasons
after the shot was
introduced in 1979–80.Three-pointers made
by the Rockets in
1980–81. Houston
had 14 games last
year in which they hit
at least 21 threes.3,721
21
BILL BAPTIST/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES