Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni called on his reserves to play better after Friday’s loss against the Pistons, with the team currently sporting an underwhelming 9-8 record on the season.
“Our bench has to produce a little bit more,” D’Antoni said, according to Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle. “We got to get something out of it. We’re not getting a lot of production there. It puts a lot of extra strain on the guys doing it, playing a lot of minutes with our starters.”
Houston’s bench — a group of Eric Gordon, Gary Clark, Isaiah Hartenstein and Gerald Green — scored just 13 points on 5-20 shooting in the loss against Detroit. The group gave a better effort in Chris Paul‘s absence on Saturday, but Houston still lost.
“We have Eric,” D’Antoni said, clearly expecting his bench production to be better. “We expect 20 points a game out of that. He’s been a little bit off. He’s still doing what he does. We have to get Gerald going. Gary Clark will get better as we go along. We got to get Nene back. We expect some scoring (off the bench.)”
The Rockets have coped with injuries, poor chemistry and the departure of veteran forward Carmelo Anthony this season, resulting in the team holding the 10th best record in the West a little more than a month into the season.
Here are some other notes out of Texas today:
- Devin Harris discussed his return from injury with the Mavericks, as relayed by Eddie Sefko of SportsDay.com. Harris missed time this season after injuring his hamstring, but is working to regain his strength and stamina with the franchise. He scored nine points in 17 minutes against the Celtics on Saturday.
- ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski has no doubts that Carmelo Anthony will be back on an NBA roster this season, explaining his thoughts on his podcast this week (34:50 mark). Anthony and the Rockets surprisingly parted ways after just 10 games played this season, with the former NBA All-Star seeking a new home for the rest of the year.
- Lonnie Walker IV will practice with the Spurs‘ G League affiliate as he continues rehab from a torn meniscus, the team announced today. Walker underwent surgery after sustaining the injury in a preseason game on October 6.
Lonnie Walker is gunna be the steal of the 2018 draft when he’s health
Houston had scoring from the bench with Melo… not a great move to let him go, they could use him
It was easier to remove the cancer…
I think Dantoni was sending a similar message to the boss. As in, we can’t just dump Melo and not replace him.