Mike D’Antoni wants to keep Rockets core together

For the second straight year, the Golden State Warriors eliminated the Houston Rockets from the NBA playoffs.

The Rockets have to go back to the drawing board this summer, as they’ve also been eliminated by the Warriors four of the past five seasons.

So what comes next?

During his post-game interview, Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni said he wants to keep the team’s core group together.

“We have to gather ourselves this summer, get the core group and bust it next year,” he told reporters.

D’Antoni mentioned that the team’s core is still young, but an Oct. 28 NBA roster survey found that the Rockets lead the league with an average age of 28.6 years old.

Mike D'Antoni: Our core is still young, & Daryl (Morey) will do a great job putting in other pieces…There's no time limit right now. It's not like we can't do it next year. Yeah, we can. But hopefully, we'll learn from this & do a little bit better job. pic.twitter.com/lJL12xUORB

— Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) May 11, 2019

Houston is getting older: Chris Paul is 34 and James Harden is 30. What is even more concerning is that without a fully healthy Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, the Rockets still couldn’t pull off the Game 6 win at home.Harden, Paul, Clint Capela, P.J. Tucker, and Eric Gordon will likely remain for at least another run. The second-unit will certainly look different, as Iman Shumpert, Gerald Green, Austin Rivers, and Kenneth Faried all become free agents in July.