Those pesky tenths
You can’t do a whole hell of a lot in a tenth of a second, as the Thunder found out last week against the Nuggets as Carmelo Anthony sank a trey with exactly that much time left. That infinitesimal increment of time was back tonight to haunt the Ford Center crowd: it was Houston 97, Oklahoma City 93 very late when Jeff Green fired off a three-ball to pull to within one. Nick Collison duly fouled Rafer Alston, who reported to the charity stripe, but by then the clock was down to 0.1. Alston snagged the first free throw for his 14th point, then bricked the second, perhaps by design; there wasn’t anything Joe Smith, who got the rebound, or anyone else could do, and the Rockets went home with a 98-96 win.
The ailing Ron Artest did not play, but the allegedly-suffering Tracy McGrady was feeling no pain: T-Mac was out there for 41½ minutes and scored 26. Yao Ming wasn’t all that merciless, with a below-spec 14; Luis Scola, who shot better than anyone tonight — six of seven from the floor — also got 14, all in the second half.
The return of the familiar Kevin Durant Show was most welcome: KD picked up 27 points and six boards. Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green and Nenad Krstić all landed in double figures, and Nick Collison was good for ten rebounds. In fact, OKC dominated most of the scoring categories: they outshot Houston, 48.1 to 45.9 percent; they outrebounded the Rockets, 44-31; and they only missed two free throws out of 16 all night. They also turned the ball over twenty-one times, though, and that’s pretty much the end of the story.
It’s another grueling back-to-back: the team’s on a plane to Chicago, where the Bulls have just finished dispatching the Wizards.
