NEW ORLEANS -- This had nothing to do with bus rides or the fact the opponent's season is falling apart. The Houston Rockets just couldn't hit enough shots, and even the easy shots they got failed to fall in when necessary. Take Eric Gordon's layup attempt in the middle of the third quarter that just rolled off the rim or Clint Capela missing the entire rim on a putback.
It was one of those nights as the Rockets were defeated by the DeMarcus Cousins-less New Orleans Pelicans 128-112 on Friday night.
The evening began when the Pelicans announced Cousins would miss the game because of a sore right knee and a right rib contusion.
It appeared to line up as another easy victory for the Rockets, who defeated the Pelicans by an average of 26 points and scored 125.5 points per game in two previous meetings, one of which involved Cousins.
Then the Rockets arrived. The first bus came from Baton Rouge, nearly a 90-minute drive, because the Rockets elected to stay there due to several conventions in town gobbling up hotel rooms.
When the second bus arrived with James Harden, Lou Williams and coach Mike D'Antoni a little more than an hour before tipoff, you still didn't worry about the Rockets.
But when the game started, Houston looked sluggish. The Pelicans made 50 percent of their shots in the opening quarter, and when the half ended, the Rockets had tied a season high in points allowed with 68.
Harden wanted nothing to do with using the bus ride as an excuse for the slow start.
"No, no," he said before a reporter could finish the question about the bus ride being an issue.
D'Antoni was philosophical about the ride.
"It's a nice excuse and we shouldn't have excuses we hang our hat on," he said. "There's people in the world that are having it a lot harder than somebody sitting on the bus for an extra half hour or so. We can't go there. It doesn't help, you can't go there. There's people worried about their Meals on Wheels or their health care, and we're worried about an extra half hour on the bus? I don't think that's quite right. You've got to put it in prospective and we didn't do it, it just happens."
At halftime, Trevor Ariza and Harden were getting in some early shots, maybe looking for something that was lost at the start of the game.
It didn't matter because the Rockets' defense continued its struggles and making shots on a consistent basis was foreign concept.
Harden was his usual smooth self as he scored 41 points, grabbed 14 rebounds and had 11 assists in 39 minutes. It was his 18th triple-double of the season and 27th of his career. It was only the fourth time this season the Rockets lost when Harden had a triple-double.
Getting some help was the biggest problem.
Ariza missed five of eight shots, Anderson six of nine, Gordon and Williams combined for an 8-for-25 night.
D'Antoni was shorthanded as Sam Dekker lasted only five minutes before leaving because of lower back tightness, and Nene was given the night off with the Rockets playing on the front end of a back to back.
Houston has secured a playoff spot and one would assume the No. 3 seed for the Western Conference playoffs.
A loss on St. Patrick's Day shouldn't lead anyone to believe there's trouble with the team in red. Mark it up as one of those nights in the NBA when nothing seems to work.
"It wasn't a lot of flow," said Patrick Beverley, who, despite drawing two charging fouls, missed seven of nine shots. "They came out and they applied a lot of pressure early, and on defense they played well. They shot the ball really well. You've got to give them a lot of credit, just one of those games where we couldn't really turn it on the way we wanted to. We stayed in it and we fought until the end and we played hard, and they came out with the win. Give them a lot of credit."
