The Houston Rockets continued their stellar play on Wednesday night, while the Thunder once again were handily defeated by a lower tier NBA team in the Magic.
For the Rockets, things have gone just as planned. With their 118-97 victory over the Indiana Pacers, a week after beating Indiana 118-95, on Wednesday they have started the season 17-4 including an impressive 12-1 mark in the month of November. In the past month, James Harden averaged nearly 35 points per game, while also dishing out 10 assists per game, becoming just the third player to do that in a single month in NBA history. This was Houston’s best month since the infamous 22 game win streak with the likes of T-Mac and Yao Ming.
For Oklahoma City, the season is not going as well. With their 121-108 loss to the Magic, Russell Westbrook’s team has lost three in a row, and five of six to bring their record to 8-12 on the season.
Oklahoma City has not had a record that bad in their first 20 games since starting 7-13 in 2014.
The Thunder have had tremendous problems with sharing the ball this year as they had a mere 17 assists on 38 made field goals against the Magic. On top of that, they had just three assists in the entirety of the second half when they were outscored 62-51. They are tied for 21st in the NBA in assists per game with 21. This team still has time to figure things out, but if this continues, the team may have to find a scapegoat for their struggles, possibly Billy Donovan, or maybe even trading Paul George if it becomes apparent that he won’t be staying in Oklahoma City beyond this season.
The season is still young, but as of right now, the Rockets’ success and the Thunder’s struggles have been the best and worst stories in the league respectively.
Houston at 17-4 is in first place in the Western Conference, 1.5 games ahead of the Golden State Warriors, who beat the Los Angeles Lakers in Overtime Wednesday to bring their record to 16-6. The Thunder, on the other hand, sit in 10th place in the West 1.5 games out of the 8th seed. There is still time to turn their season around, but it is largely disappointing for a team that many thought would be challenging the Warriors for Western Conference supremacy to be fighting merely for a spot in the playoff field. Only time will tell if the most recent rendition of a big three will end up meshing and creating a solid, Championship caliber team.