Rockets Repel Rambunctious Randos
The red hot Rockets purple patch continues to grow. That’s now nine wins in a row. Frankly, this wasn’t expected, but it’s very welcome, and has put the Rockets into a more interesting conversation than previously. The Rockets are now a half game behind Golden State for the 10th play-in spot. While, again, the play-in is not some sort of long term aspiration for these Rockets, it’s a great short term goal for Phase II, something the team can put next to the wave pool. This short term, Phase II, goal is now quite possible to achieve, as well.
Standing in the way of that tonight was a lineup with two “R”s for Portland. Rookies’N’Randos. Only one Portland starter graced their lineup, rookie Scoot Henderson. More about him later.
The rest were rookies, randos, and sometimes rookie randos. Give them credit, they played hard, and tried to win this one.
Portland’s early plan was apparently “Make Nothing But Layups”. The Rockets’ was “Miss Pretty Much Everything and Let Portland Just Stroll Into The Paint”. Portland jumped out to an early nine point lead. The Rockets looked off, missing easy shots, playing little defense, and in the case of Fred VanVleet, getting into, and staying, in foul trouble. As you’d expect, Jock Landale, starting tonight in place of the suspended Jabari Smith Jr., didn’t miss a shot and scored 15pts in the first quarter to steady things. The Rockets ended up ahead by 3 points, at 28 to 25.
The second quarter featured more of the same, essentially. This time without Jock Landale scoring 15 points, so the Trailblazers went into the half up four points as the Rockets managed a dismal 19 points in the second. Portland was playing hard, the Rockets were missing everything, and this one looked frustrating.
I suspected Ime Udoka would have a, ah, rousing halftime speech for the Rockets, and perhaps he did. The team came out with a lot more energy, and started attacking the rim. Perhaps a turning point came on a Jalen Green steal that lead to a blazing break away dunk, where Jalen seemed to just turn on the afterburners and fly to the basket.
Jalen didn’t really have a great game, overall, but no Rocket, except Landale, really did. The team managed to simply outplay and out execute the rookies, randos, and rookie randos in the end. A bunch of rookies, and guys trying to catch on, like Delano Banton, who seems like an odd, but effective player, weren’t going to hold down a motivated Rockets team forever. These sorts of players generally have some NBA level skills, or attributes, but not enough to really be more than bench players on a team that isn’t deliberately losing.
How deliberately? Tonight Portland had three of their key players out with “tendinitis”, and one with “hamstring soreness”. We can all hope they recover fully from these devastating tank-related injuries.
The only likely future NBA starters in the Blazers’ lineup were Scoot Henderson and Ryan Rupert, (and who knows, maybe Banton can be the SF Portland has long dreamed of). Scoot is very athletic, and has a good handle but he simply can’t get to the rim right now without a combination of push-offs and shoulder barges. When he does, he can get shots over defenders. Scoot is strong and powerfully built, so when these aggressive moves/offensive fouls are allowed, he can score. If they are called, well, he should have fouled out tonight, but ended with five fouls in 25 minutes. It might be hard for any rookie PG generally, but trying to run this collection of players, though they fight hard, is a lot to ask.
There was some worry the Rockets, already down Sengun and Whitmore (and Eason), that not having Jabari Smith would be the Jenga block that took down the Rockets tower of wins. Not quite, but mostly because of who Portland is right now. The Rockets didn’t play well tonight, and truly missed Jabari’s defense (and offense). We got a clinic on just how many defensive problems the second year F/C (yes I said it) cleans up. Those baseline drives and interior passes are a lot harder for opponents with Jabs around. He’s not easy to shoot over, either.
Anyhow, Jalen and Jock steadied the ship, and while it wasn’t Jalen’s most efficient game, sometimes what you need is someone, anyone, to score at all. He went 9-26 and 4-12 from 3pt range, but a lot of those missed shots were decent attempts that bounced out, rolled out, etc. He added six rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals and a block tonight, and really lead the Rockets to victory.
The Rockets face a sterner test Wednesday night in OKC as they go for ten wins in a row.