“This might be the breakout game that he’s looking for,” says ESPN commentator Mark Jones after Eric Gordon hits two three-pointers in rapid succession to give him a blistering total of SIX WHOLE POINTS halfway through the first quarter. I’m all for commentators trying to manufacture hype and excitement, but trying to do it with Eric Gordon is simply a lost cause, plain and simple.
I mean, Eric Gordon is a known shot-chucker. He takes so many three-pointers that he’s bound to hit a couple in a row every once in a while. Just because he does that does not make him a candidate for a breakout game. By Mark Jones’ flimsy concept of breakout game candidacy, every single game Eric Gordon plays could be a breakout game because he’s always going to take at least fifteen to twenty shots if he gets his way.
And let’s not forget that Eric Gordon really only had one “breakout game” this season, scoring fifty points back in January. His next-best game was scoring 27 points on 8-of-19 shooting. Given Gordon’s performance this season, the chances of any individual game being a breakout game for him are rather low. Mark Jones was cruelly playing with the emotions of the viewers by implying that Eric Gordon was likely to continue playing exceptionally well for the duration of the game. What’s next, claiming that Ben “DNP” McLemore was gonna go for forty?
Final strike against Mark Jones before I drop the subject: there’s literally no way at all that any player on the Rockets can have a breakout game when Harden and Westbrook are both available to play. It’s simply impossible. Those two guys just use too much ball. Even when they’re sucking dingaling (combined, I’m pretty sure they shot below 30% on threes for the series), they’re taking all the shots. Add in Gordon’s love of shooting the ball and I’m surprised that anybody else on the team gets any FGA at all.