Tonight the Rockets fell to the Miami Heat 104-100 in what was at times a basketball game, but was for the most part an event involving the Miami Heat. Which means it was turgid, tedious and traduced the idea of basketball as enjoyment. No, basketball is far too serious a matter to be actually enjoyed for Miami, or anyone near Miami.

The Heat aren’t interested in enjoyment, but they are well coached. I’ve even heard that such is their unflagging attention to detail that they have a dedicated coach from Eastern Europe who only teaches headwhips. Devotion to mastery of details like that defines Heat Culture.

The Rockets really didn’t have to lose this game. Also, despite whatever silliness occurred with the refs, and there was a lot, as this crew lost control and indulged in petulant ejections after their own mistakes and failures, the referees were not to blame for this loss. The Rockets managed to do it to themselves.

Once again the Rockets lost a lead by being unable to score, almost at all, in crunch time, almost eight minutes without a basket. This time they lost to a team on a back to back, rather than being on one themselves, which certainly reduces the value of the excuse.

The Heat were missing their primary star Jimmy Butler. They are, however, a well coached and disciplined team, and managed to do just enough to win, anyway. They got a lot of help from the Rockets.

First, the disclaimers, as otherwise someone might suppose I hold a position I don’t hold. Every statement must thus be elaborately disclaimed.

Overall I feel good about the Rockets, their season, and them possibly being a home team in the first round of the playoffs. I like the overall direction of the team. I like their improved attitude. I think it’s entirely possible that as the core of young Rockets gets older, the offense will improve with their improvement.

But you really have to ask, how can the Rockets, with 7 recent first round picks, four in the top five, and a $40+ million FA PG, score the same number of points per game as the Chicago Bulls? Can this solely be on the players? All that talent?

So, yes, long term positivity accounted for, I have grave concerns about the offense.

With 8:10 left in the fourth the Rockets lead the Heat 92-85. From that point onwards, barring a couple of essentially garbage 3pt shots, made after the Heat’s barrage of technical free throws sealed the game for good, the Rockets scored no points until 2:47 remaining, and the Heat took a 93-92 lead.

At that time they scored 2pts, on a Dillon Brooks layup, and briefly regained a one point lead.

They wouldn’t score again until there were 6 seconds left, and the Heat lead 102-94.

In that interval Fred VanVleet, Ime Udoka, Ben Sullivan, Jalen Green and Amen Thompson were ejected and the Heat shot approximately 40 technical free throws.

This was a very winnable game with any sort of offensive output, rather than 2 points in eight minutes with the game in the balance. Miami is annoying, they praise themselves constantly, mainly, I suspect, because no one but them would waste their life talking about the Miami Heat, but they aren’t world beaters anymore.

The problem lies with Houston’s offense. I’m going to talk more about what might be a solution, besides time, but not here. Here I have to ask, what exactly is being done to help the offense?

What I mean is, when we see essentially 8 minutes of no scoring, what could be done to find some? Are there clever actions to get easy buckets out of time out? Nope. Or at least none are visible at this point. It’s just a reset to the top of the 3pt line, and DHOs, if anyone bothers to move to the inbounder.

If The System isn’t generating points on offense, well, the Rockets aren’t going to score any points. There are no plays that look different from the usual offense. There are no forced switches. There are no staggered screens, or elevator door shooter screens. There’s no Mike D’Antoni cleverness on ATOs, BLOBs and SLOBs to just go get that two points you need, on a cute action.

If Plan A doesn’t work, Plan B seems to be Run Plan A, But Harder, With A Manly Death Stare. If anything is going to cost the Rockets, let’s say, a playoff series win, it’s this.

Things can change. Things can improve, but will doing the same things bring that improvement? That’s the question I’m left with after the last two games.

Sometimes a team just needs points, and it’s fairly rare those points are scored on defense.

Next up is a Lukaless Dallas on Wednesday. The homestand is off to a rocky start, but could still be saved.