The Houston Rockets went off on Monday night, dropping in 50 points in a quarter against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 4 to take a commanding 3-1 series lead back to Houston.
The third quarter outburst was historic, as Houston became the second team in NBA history to score 50 in a quarter. The 30-point scoring advantage made it an easy win on Monday night. When the feat was mentioned on Tuesday, however, Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni demurred to praise his team for a “mark” he said didn’t matter.
Like, you know, getting a lot of triple-doubles. That clearly doesn’t matter much to D’Antoni, who called the two achievements “cute.”
https://twitter.com/ChronBrianSmith/status/988835417112932354
This could be a simple case of a coach trying not to show up an opponent you’re still in a playoff series with, but calling arbitrary statistical achievements “cute” when his best player lost the MVP race to someone who averaged a triple-double for the second time in NBA history seems to frame the comment a bit differently.
Harden is almost certain to win the award this time, despite Russell Westbrook averaging the feat for the second straight season and third time in NBA history. But it seems like D’Antoni is willing to take any chance he gets to throw some shade Westbrook’s way.
Just because round numbers are arbitrary valued mostly for aesthetic reasons, however, doesn’t make reaching them any less impressive. Unless you have something to say with the subtext, I suppose.
