The first time these teams met was a bit of a turning point for Houston. They went into the game 1-5 and had just lost James Harden for a few weeks due to a hamstring strain. They were disappointing and the narrative was turning into “Does this team actually care anymore?”
Early on, you would have thought they still didn’t care. Brooklyn built a 14-point lead with 3 minutes left in the first half, and Rockets fans were rolling their eyes. Here we go again. Then the Rockets called timeout.
Mike D’Antoni doesn’t have Gregg Popovich’s innate sense for when to call timeouts.