"High-level triple-double, obviously. But in general, I think that's who he is and he is starting to understand how teams are guarding him. I just wish we would have been a little more crisp down the stretch and I think we made a few young mistakes." - Ime Udoka on Alperen Sengun.
I didn't see the game tonight, but defense once again didn't show up. We gave up 120+ points. Who's to blame?
Like Udoka said, we made young mistakes. Every single one of our young guys had a point-out-able mistake--Jalen with the turnover, Alpi's free-throws, Bari going up soft after getting the ball right by the rim...all will be mitigated with more experience and hopefully good tutelage under our coaching staff. Less forgivable is our veterans ****ing it up in the clutch, like FVV's stretch where he decided that he was going to look for his shot every time once the pick-and-roll broke down. But again, as our younger guys get better, the ball will be trusted to be in their hands more. Not a good game, but also not the worst loss to have on a b2b. There were teaching points and positive things, and Alpi had one of the biggest statlines of the year. I'm looking forward to the next game
They just played against a healthy Clippers team. They weren't expected to win that game. They performed at a very high level through the first half but lost control of George and Kawhi and when you do that, you lose.
Fair assessment. It's great that Alpi is experiencing high-pressure closing situations with opponents keying on him. The Rockets have plenty of games left against playoff teams jockeying for position and I hope these intense, crunch time situations continue to happen. The Spurs game was truly great and demonstrates (when he decides to) Alpi can destroy teams that don't focus on stopping him. However, tonight's mental & physical stress test against a seasoned contender will be more helpful for him in the long run. Or, better yet, they could have sat him for the rest of the season and he would have missed all this.
Ime needs to look at himself in the mirror because those lineups in the second quarter allowed the Rockets to lose that big lead. Of course mistakes will be made at the end of the game because they are young and don’t know how to close games well, but that’s where the coaching staff comes in. The Rockets looked like deer in headlights down the stretch due to the lack of communication and leadership by Ime.
This team needs a real ****ing shooting guard in the worst way. That's the only difference between 27-35 and 35-27.
This team needs competent "Coach's Challenge" staff. It's actually ridiculous how bad they are at using their challenge in nearly every game.
I don't know if it would be that big of a difference unless we're talking about replacing Jalen with an all-star caliber guy, but definitely he has been the biggest drag on the team and is probably the difference between having a losing record versus, y'know, not
You can tell if the Rockets played well or not by just looking at Udoka's shoulders in the post-game press conference. Clippers feature three first ballot Hall of Famers, including two of the 50 greatest players of all time ---- they knew they could cruise for a half and turn it up. Loses like these will happen, and most of the issues were related to the Rockets age or lack of real star power - - hard to get too mad about it.
Ehh... Jalen has been incredibly inefficient and the defense has wandered back to below average. If the Rockets had a more efficient and consisten SG, they would likely have 3-5 wins more, but does it really matter long term? I don't think so.
I saw the Rockets up 20 in teh second, then I saw them up 15, 10 etc my Bayesian brilliance told me that on the second night of a back-to-back against veteran executors llke the Clippers, the tank was on E and the fade was going to continue. Fortunately Blue Bloods was on and I saved myself the aggravation.
