NBA PLAYOFFS
5 observations from the Rockets' Game 3 slaughter of the Utah Jazz
May 5, 2018, 7:26 am
Chris Paul and the Rockets were not messing around with Utah. Gene Sweeney Jr./Getty Images
Remember all that panic when the Rockets lost Game 2 at home to Utah? That it happened on the same night the Astros lost to the Yankees just put the city in a tizzy. Well, the Astros beat the Diamondbacks 8-0 Friday night, and the Rockets destroyed the Jazz to take a 2-1 series lead. Five observations from the win:
Taking control early: The Rockets came out on fire, and this looked a lot like Game 1, as they rolled to a 70-40 halftime lead. They would extend that even more to 80-43 at one point. Utah's methodical, spacing offense had no chance to get them back in the game. If the Rockets are that efficient early, the Jazz simply can't compete.
Old fashioned way: The Rockets did not shoot the 3 well, which is usually a recipe for disaster, hitting just 11 of 36. The Jazz had just as many made on fewer shots. It is a little scary what this game might have looked like if they had shot closer to 40 percent.
Balanced attack: James Harden led the way with 25 points (and 12 assists), but all Rockets starters finished in double figures except P.J. Tucker, who had nine. Harden and Paul got help throughout the lineup, including a nice effort of the bench from...
Eric Gordon finally showed up: Gordon had been awful most of the playoffs, but something about being in Utah woke him up. He scored 25, including 8 of 13 shooting. The Rockets need him to be a key factor, and he finally was.
Turning the tide: Even in the Game 2 loss, the Rockets have been winning the turnover battle, and Friday was no exception. The Jazz had 17, while the Rockets only had eight. The Rockets also shot 48 percent to 41 for the Jazz, flipping that stat from Wednesday night.
All in all, it was a strong effort from the Rockets, who put it away early and coasted to the finish. It might have been the ugly Jazz jerseys that inspired them. Who knows? Another effort like that in Game 4 will make the eventual ending of this series even more inevitable.
They’ll be watching in Canada, not just because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, though the NBA’s scoring champion and MVP favorite who plays for Oklahoma City surely helps lure in fans who are north of the border.
They’ll be watching from Serbia and Greece, the homelands of Denver star Nikola Jokic and Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo. Alperen Sengun will have them watching Houston games in the middle of the night in Turkey, too. Slovenian fans will be watching Luka Doncic and the Lakers play their playoff opener at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Los Angeles. Fans in Cameroon will be tuned in to see Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. Defending champion Boston features, among others, Kristaps Porzingis of Latvia and Al Horford of the Dominican Republic.
Once again, the NBA playoffs are setting up to be a showcase for international stars.
In a season where the five statistical champions were from five different countries, an NBA first — Gilgeous-Alexander is Canadian, rebounding champion Domantas Sabonis of Sacramento is from Lithuania, blocked shots champion Victor Wembanyama of San Antonio is from France, steals champion Dyson Daniels of Atlanta is from Australia, and assists champion Trae Young of the Hawks is from the U.S. — the postseason will have plenty of international feel as well. Gilgeous-Alexander is in, while Sabonis and Daniels (along with Young, obviously) could join him if their teams get through the play-in tournament.
“We have a tremendous number of international players in this league,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this season. “It’s roughly 30% of our players representing, at least on opening day, 43 different countries, so there’s much more of a global sense around our teams.”
By the end of the season, it wound up being 44 different countries — at least in terms of countries where players who scored in the NBA this season were born. For the first time in NBA history, players from one country other than the U.S. combined to score more than 15,000 points; Canadian players scored 15,588 this season, led by Gilgeous-Alexander, the first scoring champion from that country.
Gilgeous-Alexander is favored to be MVP this season. It'll be either him or Jokic, which means it'll be a seventh consecutive year with an international MVP for the NBA. Antetokounmpo won twice, then Jokic won three of the next four, with Cameroon-born Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers winning two seasons ago.
“Shai is in the category of you do not stop him,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said after a game between the Raptors and Thunder this season.
In other words, he's like a lot of other international guys now. Nobody truly stops Jokic, Antetokounmpo and Doncic either.
And this season brought another international first: Doncic finished atop the NBA's most popular jersey list, meaning NBAStore.com sold more of his jerseys than they did anyone else's. Sure, that was bolstered by Doncic changing jerseys midseason when he was traded by Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers, but it still is significant.
The Slovenian star is the first international player to finish atop the most popular jerseys list — and the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to hold that spot in more than a decade, since soon-to-be-enshrined Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony did it when he was with New York in 2012-13.
“We’re so small, we have 2 million people. But really, our sport is amazing,” fellow Slovene Ajsa Sivka said when she was drafted by the WNBA's Chicago Sky on Monday night and asked about Doncic and other top Slovenian athletes. “No matter what sport, we have at least someone that’s great in it. I’m just really proud to be Slovenian.”
All this comes at a time where the NBA is more serious than perhaps ever before about growing its international footprint. Last month, FIBA — the sport's international governing body — and the NBA announced a plan to partner on a new European basketball league that has been taking shape for many years. The initial target calls for a 16-team league and it potentially could involve many of the biggest franchise names in Europe, such as Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.
It was a season where four players topped 2,000 points in the NBA and three of them were international with Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic and Antetokounmpo. Globally, time spent watching NBA League Pass was up 6% over last season. More people watched NBA games in France this season than ever before, even with Wembanyama missing the final two months. NBA-related social media views in Canada this season set records, and league metrics show more fans than ever were watching in the Asia-Pacific region — already a basketball hotbed — as well.
FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said the numbers — which are clearly being fueled by the continued international growth — suggest the game is very strong right now.
“Looking around the world, and of course here in North America," Zagklis said, "the NBA is most popular and more commercially successful than ever.”