Mike D'Antoni Lost The Biggest Game Of His Career, And He Only Has Himself To Blame

Mike D'Antoni coached the Houston Rockets to 65 games this season and led James Harden to what is almost certainly an MVP award. While those are stellar achievements, they mean absolutely nothing after what happened Monday night in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. While his players played the game, D’Antoni has no one but himself to blame for Houston’s second half collapse and elimination.

Let me say off the top that D’Antoni deserves plenty of credit for seeing long ago what the NBA would become. He was one of the first to truly unlock the value of the 3-point line and used the pick-and-roll to tremendous effect in his “Seven Seconds or Less” offense. That helped him lead the Phoenix Suns to the Western Conference Finals twice, but there is a reason they never progressed further.

D’Antoni is a “big ideas” guy. He sees trends in the game and capitalizes on them with his system. The problem is, he’s so locked in to a philosophy that he refuses to budge when things aren’t working. There is no adjustment or deviation from the scheme. There is never a Plan B. Good coaches make adjustments when things go wrong and great coaches school their teams so well they don’t have to be told when to change things up because they already know what to do. D’Antoni does neither of those things.

Monday night the Rockets slowly built a first half lead on the Warriors. With 4:54 remaining in the second quarter a Harden dunk put Houston up 48-33. The Rockets built that lead by exposing the one area on the floor they had an advantage over Golden State: the paint. Then suddenly, they changed things up.

Entering the third quarter the Rockets led 54-43, but had missed nine 3-pointers in a row. It was obvious to anyone watching that they should continue to attack the paint. But suddenly Houston decided to start chucking 3-pointers at an even higher rate. It was ridiculous.

For the quarter the Rockets went 0-for-14 from deep, and went on a stretch through the fourth quarter where they missed an NBA playoff record 27 3-pointers in a row. At one point they had missed an insane 29-of-30 attempts. It was some of the worst basketball I’ve ever seen from a good team.

D’Antoni called two timeouts during that horrendous stretch of basketball and as his team left the floor each time, he focused on harassing the officials, not getting through to his players. When those breaks were over, there were no major changes to the way the Rockets were playing. Instead of relying heavily on Harden and Clint Capela in the pick-and-roll and the supporting cast driving from the wings, it was drive-and-kick for threes or Harden isolation plays and deep pull-ups.

Houston was handing the game to Golden State and D’Antoni did nothing to change that formula.

In the end, the Rockets went 7-for-44 (15.9 percent) from 3-point range, while shooting 29-for-46 (63.0 percent) on 2-point shots. If you look at sections of the box score, there is absolutely no reason Houston should have lost. The Rockets out-rebounded the Warriors 44 to 42, they won the turnover battle 17 to 12 and — here’s the big one — outscored Golden State in the paint 56 to 28. They doubled them up! Yet when they needed buckets the most, they completely avoided that area of the floor.

D’Antoni loves the 3-point line and that’s completely understandable. That said, there always has to be a Plan B because sometimes shots don’t fall. Late in the playoffs guys are tired, sometimes their legs aren’t there and that leads to shots flattening out and, in the end, not going in. When that happens, there has to be something else a team can rely on. D’Antoni’s squads never have that something else. They never know when to shift gears and attack in different ways. And that’s why they are always at home when the NBA Finals roll around.

The Warriors are a phenomenal team, but Monday night the game was there for the taking. The Rockets had a 15-point lead at home and all the momentum, then lost it by stubbornly sticking to a system that wasn’t working. That falls squarely on Mike D’Antoni’s shoulders.

He has no one but himself to blame for Houston’s playoff exit.