The training hall at the Toyota Center is buzzing with people, and the Houston Rockets are doing routine training for their next game against the Nuggets.

Due to the addition of Harden, Tall Zhuang, Jeremy Lin, Asik and others, and the Rockets' strong start to the season, the Houston media has paid a lot of attention to the Rockets, and a large number of reporters are waiting in the media lounge at the specified time.

However, the Rockets' closed practice session was not over, and one hour later, the door to the team's training hall was still closed to reporters, some of whom were looking at their watches impatiently, and one reporter even joked that "the current training length has caught up with the Van Gundy era"

Finally, the door of the training hall opened, and the Rockets team began to open training, and twenty or thirty reporters entered the training hall, making the training hall with a lot of people seem a little crowded.

In fact, the Rockets' ultra-long training is also normal, previously, Harden and other new signings only practiced with the whole team three times after joining the Rockets, so there were a lot of mistakes in the game, and the conflict between Harden and Tall and Strong in the last game was also a problem that the Rockets coaching staff had to solve, so Coach McHale talked to the two alone.

Harden, who was stretching his workout, was immediately surrounded by reporters who rushed in, and the slow ones couldn't squeeze in.

"I'm not going to make excuses, I had every chance to play better and shoot the ball in the last game, but unfortunately I couldn't," Harden replied over and over again to the same questions from reporters......

Gao Dazhuang was sitting on a chair on the sidelines to rest, but when he saw a reporter coming over, he immediately stood up and politely declined to be interviewed, walked up to head coach McHale and assistant coach Bickerstaff, and exchanged ideas with Bickerstaff about the offensive runs.

Gao Dazhuang and the assistant coach of the Rockets Sampson and Bickerstaff exchanged tactics, and the three of them were still standing in front of the blackboard on the sidelines, analyzing the tactics.

After the tactical study was completed, the tall man walked to the end away from the reporters with the ball and began to practice shooting.

"Brush", "brush" Now the tall and strong three-point shot is very accurate, the three-point shot under the unguarded is close to 80% of the shooting rate, and the head coach McHale, who is being interviewed by reporters on the sidelines, also looks at the tall and strong shooting situation from time to time.

The Rockets lost at home to the Portland Trail Blazers, and McHale told reporters: "We don't have the feeling of working together as a team, we don't know each other very well, we just play with some natural instincts, we need more practice, more games, and we should be better."

McHale also said that he has noticed the team's reliance on Harden and Harden's "overload", but he is more concerned about the team's offensive rhythm, players' movement, ball passing, limiting turnovers, defensive tactics, etc., of course, these are also in line with the "personality" of the young team.

"We look like a team that hasn't played together for a long time, we need a few games to run in the lineup, we have to pass the ball and help Harden lead the game, and we need to build a more fluid tactical system," McHale said, which is the first time that McHale has taken the initiative to emphasize Harden's leadership position in front of reporters.

But then McHale added: "Of course we have another very talented player, and if the opponent doesn't let Harden get the ball easily, we need to run more and let the tall and strong create offensive space and activate the team's second point of attack."

On the other side of the court, Jeremy Lin, another star player surrounded by reporters, also said: "We have to be more realistic and optimistic, we haven't played together for a long time, so we need to get to know each other, we're playing games like training now, we've won two games, we have a chance to win against the Trail Blazers, so you have to be optimistic, and now, we have two days of training and we need to understand where Harden and Tall like to take the ball and then continue to build chemistry."

……

The training and preparation of the Rockets are in full swing, everything is developing in a good direction, the morale of the Rockets is high, and Harden is also full of confidence.

However, in the fourth game of the season of the Rockets, facing the athletic Nuggets and his friend Iguodala, Harden fell into a slump and played the worst game since joining the Rockets, and finally the Rockets also lost to the Nuggets with a score of 87-93, suffering a second straight defeat.

Harden played a lot of time today, reaching 39 minutes and 40 seconds, shooting 0-of-5 three-pointers and 5-of-7 free throws, and finally scored 15 points, in addition to 3 rebounds and 2 assists.

Because Harden is now the league's scoring champion, the Nuggets attach great importance to him, and have adopted a strict defense strategy throughout the game, when Harden breaks through to the inside, the Nuggets' athletic forward players will immediately come to block, which greatly reduces Harden's power, in the entire first half, Harden only shot 7 times, and only 2 hit the basket, and finally only 5 points were scored.

At the same time, Harden made 4 mistakes in the first half of the game, many of which were helplessly stealed after breaking through to the inside line and falling into the opponent's heavy bag, plus Harden's three-point shot was not very good, and he missed all 3 three-point shots in the half, causing him to burst into and miss the shot, so the entire Rockets were also in passivity, and the halftime deficit reached 15 points.

Harden's performance is inseparable from the Nuggets' Iguodala, the Nuggets are a small lineup today, Iguodala as a scoring guard and Harden opposite, these two players are very familiar, and they also played together on behalf of the Dream Team in London this summer, and Iguodala was originally a defensive gate, whether it was in Philadelphia or in the Dream Team was the team's number one defensive player, so Harden was helplessly deflated in front of his friends.

And I don't know if it was because of the "punishment" of the last direct clash with Harden, or for some other consideration, the Rockets' other attacker, Gao Dazhuang, did not get a minute in the first half.

After replacing Harden in the third quarter, Gao Dazhuang's performance was not as good as in the previous games, and today's Gao Dazhuang's outside shooting rate was very low, although then Gao Dazhuang changed his strategy and began to impact the opponent's inside, but the difference between the two sides was too large, and his performance could not change the situation on the court.

In the end, Gao Dazhuang played 19 minutes, made 4 of 10 shots, 5 of 8 free throws, scored 14 points, 5 rebounds and 1 assist, which also ended Gao Dazhuang's record of scoring 20+ points in 3 consecutive games.

However, although he was not as tall and strong on offense, he made a staggering 6 steals on defense.

Although steals do not mean that the defense quality is high, and the defense of Lawson or Iguodala is indeed inadequate, the active scramble reflects the attitude of a player, which is the value of being tall and strong.

Gao Dazhuang became the first Rockets player in the past two years to make six or more steals in a single game, the last one was Lowry, who has already transferred, and the first on the Rockets' all-time steal list is "Glider" Drexler, who made 10 steals in the 1996 Rockets against the Kings.

The large screen at the Toyota Center in Houston, the home of the Rockets Club, has been upgraded this season to a size of 17×7.62 meters, which was originally intended to hold the All-Star Game, but due to the addition of Harden and Gao Dazhuang, this giant screen has been given a new mission to witness the "Rockets create a new era".

However, after the loss to the Nuggets, the Rockets' outlook for the season seems far less rosy than one might think.

"We don't call each other, everybody is playing on instinct," Harden said bluntly to reporters for the first time after the game.

Internal and external troubles, this is the current situation of the Rockets, after the defeat to the Nuggets, the nightmare of the Rockets is not over.

In the following back-to-back games, the Rockets lost 85-93 to the Grizzlies on the road, suffering a three-game losing streak.

For the second game in a row, the Rockets didn't score more than 87 points, and their offense was in big trouble, and James Harden's form continued to be sluggish, shooting just 4 of 18 from the field.

He left early after the game before the dressing room opened to the media, and did not give an interview.

In the two games, the Rockets had basically the same problems on the offensive end, the transfer of the ball came to a standstill, the style of play was too monotonous, and it relied too much on Harden and tall individual singles.

He scored 19 points on 8-of-13 shooting, 15 of which came in the second half, and said in an interview with reporters: "Now I feel like it's not easy to score, it's difficult, it's hard to organize our offense, we have to look at ourselves in the mirror, find out the problem and solve the problem, because we have to get stronger, go back and watch the video more, because our offense shouldn't be so bad."

Jeremy Lin, who had 15 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists in the game, and couldn't get the ball a lot of the time in the positional battle, said: "We have to give each other easier scoring opportunities, constantly moving, moving, passing, passing, I have said that a few times before."

In the preseason, the Rockets' tactical play was to "run and play", and their first reaction after winning the backcourt rebound was to run forward and play a speed battle.

However, the Rockets scored 33 defensive rebounds in this game, but only scored a pitiful 5 points through the fast break.

"The reason for the low number of fast-break points is simple," Rockets head coach McHale said to reporters, "we just didn't run, we didn't run with the intensity and speed that we used to, and part of the reason was me, we had to work hard to get everybody up and get everything done."

In the last three games, the Rockets coach said the same thing after the game, McHale continued to criticize the team's offense after the game today, saying: "We also pulled out space, but the ball was not well transferred, we didn't do well defensively, the opponent broke us, all three games were like this, the opponent was the core player who pounced on us, we had to make adjustments and move the ball more at the beginning of the offense"

"Also, we had 20 turnovers today and let the opponent steal 18 offensive rebounds, which is too much, we have to control the mistakes and give the opponent less chance to attack," McHale said at the end and turned away from the press conference.