House Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni will not be coaching the team’s last regular season game against Oklahoma City on Tuesday.
Though D’Antoni hopes to be released from the hospital sometime Tuesday, the Rockets game against the Thunder is away.
D’Antoni has been in Memorial-Hermann since Friday due to an intestinal virus and missed the team’s last two games. According to Feigan, D’Antoni had been severely dehydrated but has shown good improvement on Monday.
The Rockets have won six straight games, including the last two without D’Antoni.
Associate head coach Jeff Bzdelik and assistants Roy Rogers, Brett Gunning and Matt Brase have been in charge of the team and had two of their biggest blowouts of the season in the past two games. The Rockets set the NBA record with 27 3-pointers on Sunday against the Phoenix Suns in the last regular season home game.
“This is a by-product of Mike and the culture he’s created here,” Bzdelik said. “Everybody is staying in their lane. Everybody is doing their job. It’s a credit to Mike and what he’s established here. Most importantly, the players have been awesome. Their leadership, you can’t have a good team, you can’t have a great team unless you have great internal leadership and we have great internal leadership.
According to Feigan, James Harden said the team can easily handle work without D’Antoni, but “love Mike” and are eager for him to return.
“We’re lucky we have some amazing assistant coaches and mature, vet players on this roster and in this organization to where guys know what we need to do,” Harden said. “It’s pretty simple. Obviously, we love Mike and we want him back and healthy as soon as possible. But until that time, we have to go out there and try to win games and play the right way.”
D’Antoni, 67, was named head coach of the Rockets in June 2016 and he received his second NBA Coach of the Year award for the 2016–17 season.
