Short-handed Thunder squeak by Rockets for 20th straight Houston loss

Photo courtesy of Michael Wyke/Associated Press

The sun rose, the world continued on, and the Houston Rockets lost another game.

In the team's latest attempt to end a losing streak spanning the length of two months, the Rockets instead bowed down to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday afternoon, dropping a tightly-contested game by a score of 114-112.

The Rockets were actually favored to win the game, if you could believe it. It's hard to blame the Vegas bookkeepers either -- going into Sunday's contest, Houston had all of John Wall, Victor Oladipo, and Christian Wood available, with Kevin Porter Jr. making a surprise appearance after originally being out with quad soreness. Additionally, the Thunder were missing their best players in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Al Horford and Darius Bazley.

Everything was lined up for the Rockets to win, and end their franchise-record losing streak. In typical Rockets fashion, they blew it.

As has been the norm for the Rockets recently, they got off to a poor start. The squad trailed by nine after one, a mixture of poor defense and questionable shot selection on display. The Thunder seemed to be having their way with the Rockets early on; Lu Dort in particular, who is known more for his defense than offense, got whatever he wanted against Houston. He would finish with a team-high 23 points for OKC.

The Rockets seemed to pick themselves up a bit in the second quarter offensively. Victor Oladipo found his shooting stroke, and led the Rockets to a 40-point second quarter. He would finish the first half with 13 points on 5-6 shooting, to go along with four assists and two steals and rebounds each.

Unfortunately, that 40-point burst seemed to be all the offensive magic the team would be able to conjure for the rest of the game. Instead, the team would have to grind out possessions for a majority of the game, taking a severely undermanned Thunder team to the brink heading into the fourth quarter.

Houston actually had a fairly decent chance at winning the game late, but boneheaded mistakes cost them in the end. A questionable three-point shot early in the shot clock by Victor Oladipo with the team down one with under forty seconds remaining put the Rockets in an awkward spot, and a haphazard layup attempt from John Wall that was blocked by Lu Dort only made things harder.

The levels of head-scratching came to, well, a head in the team's final possession. Down two with a few seconds to go, the ball was inbounded to John Wall with a chance to tie or win the game. Rather than wait for the team to run Coach Stephen Silas' play, which was already in motion, Wall instead elected to shoot a wayward three point attempt.

You can guess how that went.

It was easy to imagine the frustration and disappointment evident in the team after the loss. "We're not playing together," Christian Wood said after the loss. "I would like to be more involved in the offense going down the stretch."

And really, that's what it boils down to. Christian Wood finished with a team-high 27 points on an efficient 9-16 shooting, along with eight rebounds, seeming to return to his All-Star form prior to his injury. Victor Oladipo also dropped in 23 points, six assists and five rebounds. Even John Wall, despite the ending, had a decent game with 24 points and seven assists.

But the team wasn't playing together, and that was why they lost to a Thunder team they had no business losing to.

And for no one did the loss weigh heavier on than Coach Silas, who looked about as defeated as a man could seem in the postgame interview.

For a man who was promised James Harden and Russell Westbrook upon accepting the head coaching job, to now inheriting this mess of a team, can anyone really blame him?

Houston's next opportunity to end their longest losing streak in franchise history will come on Monday against the Toronto Raptors, who themselves are nursing an eight-game losing streak. Tip-off is scheduled for 8 PM CT.