·With the win tonight, the Blazers snap a four-game losing streak to the Rockets. Houston picks up its fourth straight loss while Portland finishes its four-game road trip 3-1. Tonight marked the Rockets final game in October. Houston was 5-3 last October before going 12-1 in November. ·Houston has lost two of its past three games despite holding the opposition below 110 points. The Rockets were 50-8 when holding opponents below 110 points last season. Houston has scored below 90 points in two of the past three games after averaging 116.0 ppg the first three games of the season. ·The Rockets shot 23.3% from 3-point range tonight. Houston is 0-3 when shooting 33.3% or below from behind-the-arc this season. In 2017-18, 12 of the Rockets 17 losses came when shooting 33.3% or worse from downtown. ·Houston lost despite having just 12 turnovers while forcing 20. The Rockets are 0-3 when having 12 or fewer turnovers this season after going 28-2 when doing so in 2017-18. Over the past three games, opponents are averaging 18.3 tpg after averaging 12.0 the first three games. ·The Rockets lost despite having a season-high 9 blocks. Houston is 0-3 when recording 7+ blocks this season after going 17-0 when doing so in 2017-18. The Rockets are averaging 6.33 bpg so far this season, up from 4.78 in 2017-18. Houston hasn’t averaged at least 6.00 bpg in a single season since 2002-03. ·Clint Capela had 14 points and a game-high 14 rebounds, marking his third straight double-double and his fourth overall this season. He had 7 offensive boards, marking his third straight games grabbing 6+. The last Rocket to grab 6+ offensive rebounds in at least three straight games was Dwight Howard with three games from 11/4-11/11/15. Capela also had 3 blocks tonight. The Rockets are 0-3 when he has 2+ blocks this season after going 36-5 in 2017-18. ·Rookie Gary Clark had 11 points in 19 minutes of play. The last Rockets rookie to score in double-figures at home was Montrezl Harrell with 17 points vs. Golden State on 10/30/15. Over the past two games, Clark has 5 3FGM on 41.7% shooting. He averaged 2.0 3FGM on 55.6% shooting in the preseason. ·P.J. Tucker shot 2-of-5 from 3-point range tonight. He has hit 2+ 3FGM in five of the six games this season and is averaging 2.2 3FGM on 40.6% shooting. The Rockets were 29-2 when Tucker had 2+ 3FGM in 2017-18. ·Marquese Chriss had a block in 8 minutes of play in his Rockets debut tonight after missing the first five games with a left ankle sprain. He averaged an NBA-high tying 2.50 bpg in the preseason. Chriss averaged 1.7 bpg per 36 minutes played for Phoenix last season. ·Jusef Nurkic had a game-high tying 22 points with 10 rebounds in 24 minutes of play. The last Blazer to record at least 20 points and 10 boards in 24 or fewer minutes played was Arvydas Sabonis with 32 and 10 at Golden State on 4/6/01. POST GAME QUOTES: ROCKETS HEAD COACH MIKE D’ANTONI (On comparing the Rockets start this season to last season’s start) “Last year, we played well. Right now, we’re playing like crap. That’s the difference. We’re just not playing well. You know, I don’t have a whole lot of answers for you right now. We’ll look, we’ll fight it. Not making shots, not making foul shots, not making layups, and last year we did.” (On searching for offensive identity) “Not identity. Just searching for a basket every once in a while would be nice. But you know, it’s a classic ‘you’re in your struggle’ and we got to get out of it, and we got to keep fighting, and we’ll keep the spirit up. These guys are good guys. Like I said, we’ll find something and hopefully it’s not too late, but we got to get back on the horse. We got to get James (Harden) back. Obviously, that’s a big part of our offense. No excuses, injuries are part of the game, at the same time, I felt their spirit. They stayed with it. We let the rope go for a little bit there, and then they picked it back up, and that’s all I’m asking from them, to have the spirit until we can figure things out.” ROCKETS FORWARD CARMELO ANTHONY (On if he can pinpoint why the Rockets are struggling) “Right now I think we just got to keep biting at it, keep fighting, keep playing. You know, I’m big on staying the course and figuring it out, whatever we have to figure out, and I’m sure we will do it. It’s just a matter of us kind of just getting that one win, you know getting that feeling, getting that winning feeling. You know it’s this funny saying that after the team winning 60-something games last year and to say that we get a winning feeling again. Once again, it’s early but it is somethings that we have to fix. There is some things that we have to do, as far as, our mentality, going out there on the court playing hard, playing aggressive, putting a full game together, and just figuring it out. Sometimes it’s just a matter of just out working out your opponent and playing harder than your opponent and doing whatever you have to do to get that next win. And that can snowball into some positivity.” (On if the Rockets effort is where it needs to be) “Well, I think at this point we just all have to kind of just hold ourselves accountable and say ‘look we’re not playing the best that we can play’ and go from there. It’s always on to the next game. The good thing about it is we’re six games into the season, this is only game six, but the games that we’re losing, once it goes bad, it goes bad. So we have to fix that, we have to change that, we have to kind of have some sustainability out there. Have some force and some fight and get ready for the next game on Friday.” ROCKETS GUARD CHRIS PAUL (On what the Rockets need to do to get back on track) “Man, we got to see what it feels like to win again first and foremost, but we just got to keep competing. You know what I mean? Offense wasn’t the greatest tonight. I’ve definitely got to be better. I missed a lot of shots that are definitely makeable shots, and then we just got to keep getting better on defense.” (On whether or not he’s concerned of the psyche of the team) “No. I mean, what is it, 1-5? Luckily, we play 82 of them. We’re going to keep trying to get guys back, but right now, we don’t like the way it looks, like how we lose. If you lose by 15 or if you lose by one, you still lost. We just got to get the spirit right, and I think that will happen once we start playing better.” (On how important it is to have veteran leadership on the team when going through struggles) “Very important, very important. I couldn’t imagine being one of the rooks (rookies) or one of the young guys, you know what I mean? It just seems like it will never get better, but for us, that have been around a while. We realize that it’s early, and if you run off 10 wins in a row or something like that, at some point, this would be an afterthought.” ROCKETS FORWARD P.J. TUCKER (On why things go so bad, when they go bad) “That’s something we’re trying to figure out still for close games. We’re still trying to figure out why it goes so south so fast. (We) play great defense, probably our best defensive first half, (we) just couldn’t score the ball and that’s fine, kind of figured in our score. But for the start of the third quarter defensive like that is unacceptable, it’s embarrassing.” (On the Rockets struggling on offense) “Not having the MVP is tough. Not having one of the best players in the league is tough because he initiates a lot of the offense and gets it going. But still we didn’t shoot the ball well tonight again and that hurts. We took so many threes, and getting stops, and getting out in transition, we didn’t finish as well either. It’s a whole bunch of stuff that accounts for that.” TRAIL BLAZERS COACH TERRY STOTTS (On the game) “Their (Houston Rockets) switching, gave us a lot of trouble early on. The first quarter and a half was kind of tough to watch, but Dame (Damian Lillard) kept it simple and he made a lot of good reads, and made some good drives, and we were able to get some separation at the end of the half, just by playing isolation. It wasn’t necessarily pretty basketball, but it was good to get a win.” (On his team’s play to start the second half) “That was really good. To get a quick lead and jump out on them like that and get it up to 20, rather than give them any life early, I think that was really important.” (On the road trip) “We were disappointed with the loss in Miami, but 3-1 on the road, you’ll take that most times.” (On winning with defense, rather than their offense) “I still like scoring 120, if we can, but we’re going to need to have some defensive games. Last night in Indiana was good, and I thought we were pretty solid for most of the game, but we let them get too many offensive rebounds, particularly, in the second half. Overall, I think it was two good defensive games for us.” TRAIL BLAZERS FORWARD/CENTER ZACH COLLINS (On the game) “We just had to adjust how they were switching everything. They were kind of mucking up our offense. Once we kind of, took our time, and didn’t allow them to get us all panicked, we were fine.” (On his defensive play and what it brings to the team) “I’m just trying to figure out anyway I can help the team win. The defensive side of the ball is definitely where I can make my impact, because we have guys on this team that could put the ball in the basket. That’s all I try to do, is go out every night and be a defensive presence.” TRAIL BLAZERS GUARD DAMIAN LILLARD (On the 3-1 road trip) “I thought we competed well. Each game, I thought something different had to happen for us to be in position to win. If you would’ve told me, we would’ve come away from this trip, 3-1, I’m sure everyone in here would’ve took it. I’m proud of the way we handled our first trip.” (On the slow start offensively and what turned it around) “Defensively, I thought we started off great. Neither team was making a lot of shots, but they (Houston Rockets) were switching everything, switching all of our plays. I just think it took us a little while to figure out how to attack. I think in the second quarter, me and CJ (McCollum), we just started to call the switch for the big getting into the paint to score. I guess if they came to help, we just made the next play. We did a good job of finishing in the paint, early and late. CJ got in the paint and drew some fouls, and I was able to get into the paint and score some buckets, and then hit a few guys for shots. I think from there, we had a remedy from them switching on all our stuff, and in the third quarter, we just continued.” (On if he’s surprised to see Houston in this position now) “I think everybody expected them to come out and pick up where they left off last year, but they’ve had injuries. A lot of teams got better and it’s early in the season. A lot of teams are coming out excited and ready to be a new and improved team from last year. I think it’s still early, but time will tell.” TRAIL BLAZERS CENTER JUSUF NURKIC (On his slow start and what made the difference in his third quarter play) “I thought as a team, we started slow in the first half. They kind of switched on everything and surprised us how aggressive they were. We tried to adjust, and then we did pretty well. There are going to be nights, nobody’s perfect, but I work on (my game), and I believe what I do. Sometimes, I can control those things, and most times I do. The basketball that they play, I thought that they were switching everything, and our team recognized that, and made them pay for what they were doing.”
