Houston Rockets guard Jason “The Jet” Terry has had a reputation as a closer throughout his 17-year NBA career. However, Terry is now 38 years old, and can’t close out games all by himself, nor should he have to. Terry is far from impressed with how his team has handled late-game situations, and spoke out about it after the Rockets blew an 18-point lead and lost to the Utah Jazz. From Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle:
“It’s bad. It’s a bad loss for us,” guard Jason Terry said. “It’s definitely disappointing. That’s tough. It’s on the players. You don’t have an (18) point lead in the first half and allow a team to come back when your playoff life is depending on it.
“Execution has been poor in the fourth quarter, the last two minutes of games. We are the worst team in the history of basketball executing in the fourth quarter.”
Yikes. That’s about as harsh an insult as you can give. I mean seriously. Calling your team the worst in the history of the sport in any category is probably going a bit too far. This was obviously a major over-exaggeration brought on by Terry’s frustration with the loss. The Rockets have actually been pretty good 4th quarter team this season, pointed out Feigen:
The Rockets are not that, or even close. They are eighth in offensive rating in the last five minutes of games with a margin of five or fewer points, seventh in net rating. They are fourth offensively in the fourth quarter.
Terry also pointed to the team’s lack of “desperation” as a reason for their loss:
“You still have to play desperate,” he said. “I don’t think we played desperate enough for 48 minutes.”
This loss to the Jazz was one with massive playoff consequences. After the loss, the Rockets are a half a game behind the Jazz for the 8 seed with just 10 games left to play.
