Culture / Sporting Life

Nervous Houston Rockets Fans Threaten to Steal James Harden and Mike D’Antoni’s Joy: Now’s No Time to Freak Out Over Golden State

BY // 04.16.18

Houston Rockets fans are as stressed as Tristan Thompson’s publicist at the moment. The Golden State Warriors suddenly look like the Golden State Warriors again, having seemingly flipped the switch as easily as a Porsche zooms away from a stoplight. Meanwhile, the Rockets look anything like an indestructible No. 1 seed in a 104-101 escape versus a Minnesota Timberwolves team that barely made the playoffs.

So the old anxiety is back, the dread that something embarrassing could happen to James Harden and Chris Paul in the playoffs again.

This is no way to live, though. No way to be a fan. It’s time for the most uptight and worry-prone fan base in Houston to embrace the journey, every exciting step and jarring bump of the way.

This is how the Houston Astros won a championship after 55 years. When the Major League Baseball playoffs started last October, the Astros didn’t bear the burden of ultra-sensitive nerves — or anyone expecting the worst. If they lost to the Red Sox in the first round it would have been a disappointment, but it wouldn’t have been framed as a collapse.

With the Astros, fans just jumped on and enjoyed the journey.

These 65-win Rockets should get that same grace. It’s time to revel in Harden dropping 44 points in a playoff game, the most any NBA player scored in any Game 1 this weekend. Fretting over the fact that the supporting cast Rockets general manager Daryl Morey assembled to much fawning praise only combined for 22 points — with Trevor Ariza (three points in 33 minutes), P.J. Tucker (three points in 31 minutes), Eric Gordon (seven points in 30 minutes) all particularly disappointing in the time when role players tend to fade away — does little good.

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This Rockets’ run won’t be all smooth, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be a joy. This team needs it to be to have a real chance at dethroning the Warriors. Rob Harden and Paul of the moments, turn these playoffs into an anxiety-filled slog, and no one leaves happy.

The real thrill is in the chase — in every heart stopping dash along the way. Those closet to the game understand this. If your only joy comes in the championship itself, you’ll never get there.

“Our goal is to win a championship,” Laurel D’Antoni, the wife of the Rockets coach, tells me. “But I tell you what, the road getting there is what’s exciting. It’s like falling in love. Right? All the courtship… that is really cool.

“Get married and that day is not as special as all the other stuff. That’s just the culmination, the verification, which is really great, but it’s not as great as the love.”

Just think of the Astros’ run. Do you remember the trophy presentation or that wild, epic 13-12 Game 5 World Series win? Do you get goosebumps over the golden pennant now at Minute Maid Park or remembering Alex Bregman taking Chris Sale over the Green Monster? Moments matter.

This doesn’t mean that Mike D’Antoni, Harden and Paul aren’t agonizing over the playoffs. But if that’s all they do, they have little chance of performing at their best.

A 44 Point Harden Moment

It means something that Harden goes for 44 in his first chance to start erasing the stink of that Game 6 no-show against the Spurs last May. It should be celebrated. Harden’s made plenty of mistakes over the years, but this is now a 28-year-old super talent playing at absolute peek level.

“I think the James Harden of today is nothing like the James Harden of last year,” Laurel D’Antoni says. “Or the James Harden of two years ago.”

The James Harden of Playoffs Past is probably not heading to the Toyota Center on a Saturday night to get in some extra shooting — as The Beard did on this Game 1’s eve.

Even fierce Rockets critic Charles Barkley is suddenly all in on Harden’s greatness.

“James Harden, to me, might be the most unguardable player I’ve ever seen,” Barkley declares on national TV in the wake of that 44.

It’s not like the Timberwolves do not have an elite defender to throw at the Rockets’ lifeline. Jimmy Butler is one of the best two-way players in basketball. But when he’s matched up with Harden on Sunday night, he looks as helpless as a goldfish flopping out of its tank.

This is a moment. Forty four point playoff games are not common occurrences. There were only four games in which a player scored 44 points or more in the entire 2017 playoffs. Neither Kevin Durant or LeBron James did it.

Yes, the Rockets win was scarily close for the NBA’s No. 1 overall seed. But Chris Paul is unlikely to be this muted in Game 2 on Wednesday night. “I was the Bad News Bears out there,” Paul says in the postgame news conference, lamenting his turnovers. These Rockets will still get their share of blowout wins.

But sometimes, you just need to embrace the moment — struggle and all.

When Rockets 104, Timberwolves 101 is over, the team’s first-year billionaire owner Tilman Fertitta still orders that the lights on the very top level of his new 38-story luxury tower, The Post Oak, be turned on in red. Everyone driving on the West Loop can see a tangible sign of victory.

The journey is underway. There’s no use complaining about some unexpected traffic now.

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