Rockets Wire previously explored some of the most meaningful Houston Rockets transactions over the past decade. On Friday, we look back at the team’s actual basketball games over that same period of the 2010s.
Dating back to 2010, the Rockets have the fourth-most wins among the NBA’s 30 franchises. They’ve advanced to the Western Conference Finals twice in the past five years, which they hadn’t previously done since 1997.
Nonetheless, as the new decade nears, the Rockets are still in search of their first NBA championship since 1995.
For better or for worse, here’s a look back at some of the most pivotal games from the past decade as it pertains to that pursuit.
Honorable mention
April 9, 2019: The Rockets (53-29) lost to the Thunder in Oklahoma City, 112-111, in the final game of the 2018-19 regular season. Houston led by four points with possession of the basketball and under 45 seconds left to play. The Thunder rallied on a 3-pointer and dunk from future Rockets guard Russell Westbrook, and a game-winning corner trey with under two seconds left from Paul George.
That loss dropped the Rockets from the No. 2 seed in the 2019 Western Conference playoffs to the No. 4 seed. In turn, that put Houston on course for a playoff matchup with the top-seeded and two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors in the second round, rather than the third.
As it turned out, Warriors star Kevin Durant missed the entire Western Conference Finals due to injury after playing in five of six second-round games versus Houston. While there are no guarantees that everything would have played out along a similar timetable had Golden State played a different opponent in the semifinals, the Rockets were left to wonder, what if?, after Durant’s near-total absence made the Warriors more vulnerable in the series against the Portland Trail Blazers and eventual NBA champion Toronto Raptors.
April 28, 2015: After a pair of first-round losses in his first two seasons in Houston, James Harden made sure it didn’t happen again. The Rockets star guard, who won Players’ MVP after that season, scored a game-high 28 points in a Game 5 series clincher at home in the first round against in-state rival Dallas Mavericks. Harden connected on 4-of-8 3-pointers (50%), and he also led Houston with eight assists.
This was also the game that led to a postgame controversy about the use of an emoji horse and gun from the Rockets’ official Twitter account.
With honorable mentions complete, read on for our selections of the top five most pivotal Houston Rockets games of the 2010s.
No. 5: Oct. 31, 2012
Rockets 105, Pistons 96: The trade for James Harden by GM Daryl Morey just days before the 2012-13 season was indisputably Houston’s top transaction of the decade.
However, it wasn’t without questions at the time. Though Harden’s efficiency numbers were outstanding during his first three seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder, many questioned how well it would translate to scale. In effect, Harden was going from the No. 3 option to the No. 1 and being asked to play closer to 40 minutes per game instead of 30.
In Harden’s first game with the Rockets, with barely a practice under his belt, the Rockets quickly got an idea of how he might look in the years ahead. In 44 minutes, Harden scored a game-high 37 points on remarkable 14-of-25 (56%) shooting efficiency, along with game-highs of 12 assists and four steals. The Rockets won on the road.
The Rockets went on to post a 45-37 record in Harden’s debut season in Houston. They made the NBA playoffs for the first time in four years.
No. 4: May 11, 2017
Spurs 114, Rockets 75: This one will long live in infamy for the Rockets, who were eliminated from the playoffs by the San Antonio Spurs in Game 6 of their second-round series. Even though Kawhi Leonard sat out due to injury, the Spurs and Gregg Popovich stifled the Rockets by holding them to just 75 points at home. Harden scored just 10 points on 2-of-11 shooting (18.2%), with six turnovers. Houston shot just 28.6% from the field as a team.
In hindsight, this game is most memorable for the changes it sparked in the upcoming 2017 offseason. After that humiliating loss, it was clear the Rockets were more than just a few tweaks from contending for an NBA title. Instead, in an NBA led by the star-studded Warriors, the Rockets desperately needed to surround Harden with more All-Star talent. About six weeks later, the Chris Paul trade happened.
And less than a year later …
No. 3: May 8, 2018
Rockets 112, Jazz 102: This was the Chris Paul game of his two-year Houston tenure, and perhaps of his entire NBA career. In the same round as the prior year’s failure and on the same Toyota Center court, Paul made sure it didn’t happen again.
While Harden was limited by illness and scored just 18 points on 7-of-22 (31.8%) shooting, Paul took over for the home team with 41 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds — securing the first Western Conference Finals berth of his storied Hall of Fame career.
Paul connected on an incredible 8-of-10 attempts (80%) from behind the 3-point arc, including several clutch shots down the stretch as the Rockets put the game and series away to set up their showdown with the defending champion Warriors.
No. 2: May 22, 2018
Rockets 95, Warriors 92: In Game 4 of the 2019 Western Conference Finals, this was the strongest statement yet that James Harden’s Rockets were capable of winning the NBA championship.
The Rockets trailed in the series, two games to one. They lost Game 3 by nearly 40 points at Oakland’s Oracle Arena, and they fell behind 12-0 in the opening minutes of Game 4. It appeared briefly that the moment might again be too large for them, or the team simply not good enough.
And suddenly, it all changed. Harden delivered an epic poster dunk over Draymond Green. The 12-point early deficit became a seven-point halftime lead. Even after the Warriors delivered one of their patented third-quarter flurries to take a 10-point lead heading to the fourth, the Rockets played lockdown defense in the final period and held the defending champs to just 12 points. Houston scored 25, leading to the 95-92 win and a statement in the NBA’s toughest opposing arena.
Harden scored a game-high 30 points in the Game 4 victory, and he also had three steals and two blocks. In that game on the biggest stage, Harden pushed back strongly against faulty narratives that he wasn’t reliable in the postseason and couldn’t be trusted on defense.
For the team, that win tied the series at two games apiece and put the Rockets back in the driver’s seat with home-court advantage — in what effectively had become a best-of-three series.
We know how it ended, of course. Though the Rockets won Game 5 two nights later, they lost future Hall of Famer Chris Paul in the final minute to a hamstring pull that ended his series prematurely.
Without Paul, Golden State rallied to win Games 6 and 7 and, ultimately, its second straight NBA championship.
For the Rockets, the 2018 Western Conference Finals will be remembered most for what might have been. But it was also a strong statement — even against one of the NBA’s all-time great teams — of what they were capable of. That’s the form they’ll be looking to recapture in the 2020 playoffs, albeit now with Russell Westbrook in Paul’s place.
No. 1: May 14, 2015
Rockets 119, Clippers 107: The 2014-15 Rockets (56-26) weren’t as good as the previously mentioned 2017-18 Rockets (65-17), who finished with the most wins of any team in franchise history.
But the 2014-15 group did have the most memorable game, and it came at the expense of future teammate Chris Paul.
Trailing by 19 points in the second half of Game 6 at Los Angeles and facing elimination in the second round of the NBA playoffs, the Rockets refused to go quietly into the night.
Led by a combined 38 points and 16 rebounds from veterans Josh Smith and Corey Brewer — and 20 points and 21 rebounds from big man Dwight Howard — the Rockets outscored the LA Clippers by an astounding 40-15 margin in the fourth quarter to take the series back to Houston.
James Harden struggled with his shot (23 points, 5-of-20 shooting) and was on the bench for much of the improbable comeback. However, he made up for it with a game-high 31 points along with eight assists and seven rebounds in the ensuing Game 7 at home, three days later.
The Rockets won that Game 7 by a 113-100 margin and advanced to their first Western Conference Finals in 18 years.
Happy holidays to our Rockets Wire readers! For a look at Houston’s top transactions of the 2010s, please read Thursday’s post.
