James Harden and Dwight Howard were supposed to be the stars of the show in the Houston Rockets’ first-round play-offs series against the Portland Trail Blazers.
But it is Portland’s LaMarcus Aldridge shining brightest, as the Blazers have regained the look of the elite squad who streaked to a 31-9 this season.
The 6ft 11ins forward has been the difference-maker in Portland’s three victories, by an aggregate 12 points, from the first four games. In Game 1, a two-point overtime win, he scored a Portland play-offs record 46 points. In Game 2 he dropped 43 points. In another overtime win, in Game 4 on Sunday, he had 29 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks.
Remove his 8-for-22 shooting performance in a Game 3 defeat, and Aldridge has shot 57.3 per cent (47-for-82) in Portland’s three victories.
It has the star-powered Rockets facing elimination in Wednesday’s Game 5, and has the Blazers thinking big in a Western Conference that suddenly feels more winnable with top seeds like the San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Clippers all struggling against upset-minded first-round opponents.
“I thought our guys took on the challenge,” Aldridge said following the Game 4 victory.
The Blazers were a modest 23-19 in the 42 games ahead of the play-offs. The knock on the Blazers was that their early dominance was mostly a by-product of a soft schedule and that their struggle to the finish line exposed them as overmatched by the NBA’s best squads.
But paired with the Rockets, a team seemingly well-suited for play-offs basketball, with a pair of the game’s 15 best players, in Harden and Howard, they have, as Aldridge said, taken on the challenge.
Much of the blame for Houston’s stumbles, especially given how close these games have been, has fallen on Harden. He has yet to find his shooting touch in a series where he has made only 34.9 per cent of 103 shots. Meanwhile, his offence-minded counterpart on Portland, Damian Lillard, has averaged 25.5 points per game and shot 43.5 per cent.
The Blazers have also been much better late in these games, when the outcomes have been decided. Their shooting percentage in “clutch” situations, defined by NBA.com as the final five minutes of games in which the teams are within five points of each other, is an astounding 60.5 per cent. The Rockets, shooting 46.7 per cent in those situations, are losing individual battles at the worst time possible.
Some of the Rockets’ struggles might be ascribed to bad luck, but their misfortune is the Blazers’ gain in one of the most competitive play-offs in years.
jraymond@thenational.ae
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