After playing two highly anticipated primetime games with rookie showdowns in front of a packed Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, the Houston Rockets found themselves facing one of their in-state rivals in front of a half-empty arena on Monday night. For a quarter and a half, most of those fans were engaged in something other than watching the Rockets, who were trailing the San Antonio Spurs by 18 points.
Houston’s defense had surrendered 54 points to San Antonio with two minutes to go in the first half, and it looked as if they would head into halftime with the coaching staff perplexed about what happened to all the defensive sets they were running in practice. Summer league head coach Rick Higgins had seen enough, and he called a timeout to in hopes of lifting composure for his young group of players.
During most timeouts, the coaches will huddle first and then address the players. But this time, it was different. Coach Higgins allowed the players to talk amongst themselves and fix whatever communication issues they were having with each other. The seemingly resulted in a 10-0 run to finish the half, which cut the lead to eight points.
