Chris Paul,
a point guard advertised as being born to assist, cringed a bit when
asked about the 29 field goal attempts he hoisted Wednesday night.
“Man, that’s probably the most I’ve ever shot in my career, right?” Paul said after scoring a season-high 37 points in the Houston Rockets’ 121-112 win over the Portland Trail Blazers.
Actually,
it matched the most shots Paul has attempted in a regulation game in
his 13-year career. He launched 33 shots in a 2008 double-overtime win
over current Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni’s Phoenix Suns.
“It
kind of felt like it, too,” Paul, who also had 11 assists, said of his
shot volume against the Blazers. “Like, goodness, I felt like I missed a
lot. That’s what I’m mad about.”
Paul didn’t miss when it mattered most. He has certainly had
more efficient shooting nights than Wednesday’s 13-of-29 outing, but he
was
flawless when it was winning time, hitting three shots in a span of
just more than two minutes after Portland went on a run to pull within
three points late in the fourth quarter.
Paul’s midrange
pull-up with 3:30 remaining ended a three-and-a-half-minute scoreless
drought for the Rockets, an eternity for a team with the NBA’s
second-ranked offense, even with league scoring leader James Harden
wearing street clothes while nursing a hamstring strain. Paul knocked
down a pull-up 3 with 1:45 remaining to stretch Houston’s lead to seven.
He followed that with a dagger drive the next possession, on which he
hit a spectacular scoop shot in traffic, putting a little english on the
ball as he managed to get it off the glass between a pair of long-armed
Portland defenders.
“He kind of knows how to do it,” D’Antoni said of Paul playing the closer role. “He’s only been doing it for 20 years.
Paul took one last shot — an uncontested layup with 12.8
seconds remaining — that perturbed Portland, particularly star point
guard Damian Lillard. Paul was confronted in the final seconds by Lillard, who barked and tried to swipe the ball away from him.
“As
far as sportsmanship goes and, you know, respect, if the roles were
reversed, I don’t think they would have liked it,” Lillard told
reporters.
Paul shrugged off Lillard’s angst. The rest of
the Rockets certainly didn’t have a problem with Paul temporarily
playing the role of volume scorer.
“He shot 29 times?” Trevor Ariza said, surprised at the stat. “Good. He should.”
As
for the moment with Lillard? “That’s different, but you can’t even
tell. It was in the flow of the game. We need him to be aggressive.”
That’s
especially true with Harden on the shelf, which will be the case at
least until next week. That’s more than 32 points per game the Rockets
need to replace.
It isn’t as if Paul has to do it all himself, though. Eric Gordon,
who is starting in Harden’s place, had his second 30-point performance
in the past four games. By comparison, Gordon scored 30-plus in two of
his first 109 games with Houston.
But with the Blazers determined to keep Houston from hurting them from the 3-point line — starters Ariza and Ryan Anderson combined to go only 1-of-7 from long range — Paul pounced on opportunities to create his own offense.
“He’s
taking what’s there,” D’Antoni said. “That’s what’s given to him, and
he took it. He got 37 and 11. I’m not going to say a whole lot other
than ‘great.'”
