san antonio Spurs, Rockets Meet With Both Teams Struggling

Spurs, Rockets meet with both teams struggling

You in all likelihood could have gotten especially right odds at the start of the NBA season if you had bet that both San Antonio and Houston, two of the league’s powerhouse teams, would be under. 500 a quarter of the way through the 2018-19 campaign.

The surprisingly disappointing start will be one of the storylines when the Rockets (9-11) head to the Alamo City to war the Spurs (10-11) on Friday at the AT& T Center.

Houston comes into the modern Lone Star State showdown on the heels of a 128-108 home loss to Dallas on Wednesday. The Rockets played that game without megastar defend Chris Paul, who has missed the previous three games with a hamstring injury, and key reserve wing Gerald Green, who has an ankle injury. It was Houston’s fourth loss in a row.

James Harden had 25 points, 17 assists, 11 rebounds and six steals for Houston in the loss. His assists matched his profession high.

He became the first NBA player with at least 25 points, 15 assists, 10 rebounds and five steals in a sport given that Paul did it in 2009.

Harden scored 54 points with 13 assists on Monday in a loss to Detroit, giving him consecutive games with at least forty factors and double-digit assists. Harden had scored 40 points with 13 assists in the 117-108 loss to Cleveland in the previous game.

Harden said the Rockets will get returned on song soon.

“We’ve performed it already,” Harden said. “We went through a challenging stretch, and then we regrouped and gained 5 in a row — and we seemed truly good. We’ve just bought to discern it out. We’ve obtained a lot of new guys, and it’s solely 20 video games into the season.”

James Harden and the Houston Rockets take on the San Antonio Spurs on Friday. Photo by Rolex dela Pena/EPA

Both Paul and Green are expected to play on Friday.

The Spurs return home after a 128-89 loss in Minnesota on Wednesday that forced them to be at ease with a 2-2 break up on a four-game road day trip to Indiana, Milwaukee, Chicago, and the Twin Cities.

San Antonio diminished in a dismal 2nd quarter in which it overlooked eight of its first nine photographs and was outscored 29-9. The Timberwolves kept the pedal to the metallic in the 1/3 quarter, taking a 91-58 lead, and cruised to the win with each teams’ starters on the bench for the final period.

San Antonio was once led by means of Jakob Poeltl’s 14 factors off the bench in the loss, while Quincy Pondexter introduced thirteen points, Marco Belinelli racked up 11, and LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan scored 10 points every for the Spurs.

The Spurs proceed to struggle. They are 4-9 in their previous thirteen video games and are below .500 for the 1/3 time this season. It’s the first time San Antonio is beneath the break-even mark thru 21 video games considering the fact that the 2003-04 campaign.

The Spurs are without consecutive victories when you consider that triumphing four straight video games from Oct. 27 to Nov. 3.

It’s been a difficult season for San Antonio, which traded away Kawhi Leonard in the spring, saw veteran point shield Tony Parker sign as a free agent in Charlotte, and then suffered the retirement of heart-and-soul guard Manu Ginobili.

Then, in the preseason, presumptive starting point guard Dejounte Murray was once misplaced for the season to a knee injury, essentially forcing San Antonio to instruct Gregg Popovich to start over with his team.

“This is basically a new basketball crew with a lot of guys who had never performed together,” Popovich said. “It was extra about not skipping steps and type of going again to the beginning wherein the previous there was once so tons company knowledge, you’d start the season running, all and sundry understanding their roles and their jobs.

“With this group, we had to commence with a lot extra fundamental work, and the basics of what the machine is, and then give them time to work collectively and study about every other.”

So far, the Spurs have been inconsistent, at best.