Paulo Alves

Live ball turnovers are still an issue in most games, and of course there's some roster circumstances you can point to.

We knew the turnovers without Fred Van Fleet were going to be a problem.

The offense overall is worse without Shingun.

He's maybe your best playmaker.

For most of December, you didn't have Tari Eason or Dorian Finney-Smith, and so that hurt you defensively.

But every team in the NBA has injuries.

It's a contact sport.

And what I just keep coming back to is that the Rockets overcame them just fine in October and November.

That was a team that we talked about entering December.

Paolo, you had that stat that they had the fifth best net rating in NBA history when they were 13-4 and just bludgeoning teams through Thanksgiving.

They didn't have Fred for any of those games.

They didn't have Tari for at least half of November.

They had a couple of games without KD.

They certainly didn't have perfect health, but they were dominant nonetheless.

And so what's deflating is that after Wednesday's loss in Portland, that's the 17th game since that 13-4 start.

And they're 9-8 in these last 17 games.

As mediocre as it gets, and several of those have been bad losses to teams like the Pelicans, the Kings, the Jazz, now the Blazers.

And it's literally an identical sample to the 17 games that started the year.

So as good as that was, we've now had pure mediocrity for an equal sample that offsets that.

And what struck me the most watching that game in Portland, I wasn't even that mad, Paolo.