The Golden State Warriors were destroyed last night by the Houston Rockets 140-109 and the Rockets tied the NBA record for most threes in a game with 23. This game was a beat down from the very beginning with Houston going 14-18 from downtown at the half and scoring 77 points in two quarters of basketball. This young Rockets group under Kevin McHale has been near the top of NBA in scoring and they get it from all positions.
Jackson, who as a commentator made popular the phrase “Hand Down, Man Down” was frustrated last night as the Rockets drew closer and closer to the NBA record. With a little over six minutes left and mostly reserve players in for the Rockets Newcomer Patrick Beverley and reserve forward Donatas Motiejunas drained threes to tie Orlando’s record setting mark.
And this is when it got interesting. Mark Jackson determined not to let this record get broken on him forced his players to intentionally foul the Rockets reserves with a little under 2 minutes left. The crowd sensing they were about to witness history began chants of “One more three” much to the demise of Jackson.
Jackson will consider this running up the score or poor sportsmanship, but those words are out of the window in professional sports. If you don’t want someone running up the score on you then play some defense. The Rockets played great team basketball (35 assists to 46 made baskets) and had 8 players in double figures.