ClutchFans Game Thread: Nuggets @ Rockets 11/21/2025

Thank you for sharing your journey

 

I would say the least of our causes for losing the game was the Reed missed FTs. Where they a factor? Yeah, like every other missed shot. Point blank, Sengun was atrocious last night and KD was barely better. If either of those guys just makes an extra shot each, even as badly as they played it would have been a win.

 

Try looking at the Wolves one, and I guarantee you cannot. This bullshit has to stop.

 

The ENTIRE arena gasped. My kids and I just stopped and stared at each other.

Too, the pic attached was the moment I knew Alpi was in trouble last night. He literally leaned in and hugged Jokic pre-game like a Son/Father or Grandfather/Grandson. It was....not cute. Little did I know it was a mere precursor for the next 2 hours. Maybe it's just confirmation bias but others barely dabbed up pre-game and then you had Alpi essentially paying his respects. fml

https://ibb.co/zVJhHwTw

Some observations:

1) Bari's inconsistent boxouts not only gave away offensive boards to undersized players but he tries to makeup for it w/ his hands and picked up multiple fouls this way

2) Reed's energy is special. KD's open 3's probably got 70-75% of the pop of Reed's. The anticipation when that kids gets the ball w/ a half-chance is special. He's probably already at peak Moochie Norris crowd fav status. It's wild.

3) Okogie was great getting tips and keeping plays alive. He created 3 extra possessions in the span of a few minutes and none of it was using his elite ball-pressure. Just winning plays as an undersized player. Good stuff.

4) We missed KD and Reed wide open multiple times. Alpi was most often the culprit but Amen did as well a few times. On the layup Amen missed late in the 4th he had Reed wide open at the top of the arc and all of Toyota Ctr was trying to will him to pass...collective exhale when he shot and then a miss on top <sigh>

5) Refs were atrocious as far as I could tell. Pretty great seats so I'm fairly confident in myread. #61 was an abomination through the first 2.5 quarters and finally realized the Nuggets also commit fouls sometime in the third. At that juncture, #72 realized he had to pick up the slack and championed the Nugs to victory.

6) The loose-ball foul on Alpi late in the 4th on a miss that went to the far right corner was an indefensibly awful call. That same play happens on 1/3 or 1/2 of missed shots in the NBA and that action b/n Jokic and Sengun had nothing to do with the play as the board landed 10-12 feet away and was itself contested by multiple players.

7) Alpi sucked . He seemed unsure when to initiate his offense and when to look for others. Jokic confused him a few times by blitzing early and getting him accustomed to that and then deferring for the next few possessions and hanging back at the rim to cutoff the Dunker option. Alpi's lack of success early seemed to get in his own head as he was far too mechanical and undecisive after that. Most of this was Alpi himself but credit where it's due Jokic's mind-games early on clearly had Alpi in his own head trying to outthink Jokic's next move.

8) Refs gave Alpi 0 respect. None. Valancunas ran him over on a clear charge that was a no call. #6 above details another terrible call and just in general Sengun was clearly hacked a few times in the paint and couldn't get a sniff of the whistle.

9) Bruce Brown tried to turn Reed in to his own personal DLo from the Nugs/Lakers series a few years ago when Brown's domination of DLo was one of the primary reasons the Nugs won that series. Brown used his off-hand religiously trying to create separation on offense (never called) and tried to pressure Reed on the ball every chance he could. Brown eventually came to see Reed's a hell of a better competitor than DLo and wasn't about to

10) Reed + anyone against Valancunas + anyone is the PNR matchup we MUST hunt against the Nuggets. That play single handedly got us back in the game in the 2nd. Jonas is NOT about that contest 25 foot three pointer life. It's a weakness. Use it.

11) Starting Reed in the third was an inspired decision but not matched w/ any type of game-plan. We ran the offense like Okogie or Adams was out there. What worked in the 2nd quarter was letting Reed initiate the offense. Yes he got some open looks off ball movement later but we were shooting 25% when we started the 5-1 PNR w/ Adams against Jones/Valancunas and it changed the game. it's disappointing we trotted Reed out there just expecting the same thing to happen w/ no urgency to make it happen in the third.

12) We were leading early in the 4th while:
Reed had more pts than Alpi + KD combined - we were handily out rebounded - Shooting far worse percentage on 2's -
Shooting and making fewer freethrows. he L sucks. But if Hardaway Jr outscores Jokic + Murray combined the Nuggets lose by 20. There's at least some solace in that.

13) The offense was inexcusable. During multiple timeouts in the first half FVV was the one holding court on the bench. There were stretches of 60-90 seconds where he was the only one talking to the team. Whatever the offensive issues - other than just not making shots we typically make - they were fixable. If it was poor game planning, adjustments, matchups, lineup changes, of anything defensively we wouldn't have seen that. The intensity of the second half probably blinds me to objectivity but in the first half it seemed that everyone outside of Sengun just missed shots they normally hit and for Sengun it was #7 above. Perhaps I'm not giving the Nuggets defense enough credit. That's possible.

 

There will never be another player like Joker. It’s been incredible watching him play.

 

Just a thought.. maybe they played bad because the other teams are defensively very good? I don’t think it’s as simple as they just missed shots. I think they were forced into difficult shots. Sengun was pretty close to his averages against Denver. He averages 16-7-5 on 20% 3PT shooting against them so historically they know how to play him.

With that being said KD should be playing better.

 

He wasn't the only one. Alpi and even Adams got caught staring at the rim instead of finding someone to put a body on.

Speaking of rims, I don't know what kind of voodoo hex got put on ours for much of the 1H but there were so, so many shots that rattled around and out

Excellent post, btw.

 

Well said.

I think that for better or worse, Ime is a winning coach and we are in a better place with him at the helm. That said, he also has room to grow and learn to not be SO stuck in his ways.

It’s encouraging we’ve only lost to top teams by small margins, but you also have to beat these teams come April.

Time will tell and we’ll see what this club looks like months from now.

 

Good question. I wonder how many of those poor boxouts happened playing zone defense.

 

we are still figuring it out, let's let it play out. are we in any danger of missing the playoffs? if we stay healthy we should improve over the course of the season more than any other contending team, let's have some faith. we are in good shape. get out of here with all these stupid trade for harden ideas, he's a bum. we good.

 

Great point. Both of them having poor games at the same time is not going to happen very often. The thing that's concerning to me is Alpi's field goal percentage. He has been trending down for maybe 3 years now. We have to consider the fact that a majority of his shots come from within 10 feet of the basket and he's still under 50% as a big.

This game was similar to game 7 last year when Alpi and Green had little impact against Golden State in the 4th quarter, but Amen and Jabari played well, same as last night. This time we just replaced Green with KD. We cannot have both our leading scorers disappear in the 4th in a marque game.

 

He knew Jabari wasn't gonna do ****.

 

The Nuggets D was ok, not great. The Rockets had 58 uncontested shots and only made 41% of them. Sengun and Durant played in slow motion. They had no energy on D and let the Nuggets do whatever they wanted. From the player tracking numbers Durant jogged in at 3.64 MPH. Very Hardeneque effort level.

We are early in the season, the grind hasn't kicked in, and we look physically beat. The only player with any pep in his step is RS. We missed Eason's regular jolt last night.

 

Its glaringly obvious and why this team is going to get throttled if they continue this in the post season.

Ime Udoka does not give a **** about the offense and thinks players figure it out there. That inbounds play we turned it over the other day was something I see HS teams execute better in.

I don't hate the guy but he has a cult on here that can't get in their head this team is being insanely underutitilzed or structured---"bUt hE MAdE uS 2Nd SeD"

 

The Rockets will beat the top teams once they stop whooping their own a**. I haven't seen anything to suggest they don't have the roster capable of advancing to the conference finals, at least. There's more talent on this team than any other (my opinion).

I'm as big of an Amen Thompson fan as any but until he can at least hit a middy from the free throw line consistently, he shouldn't get anywhere close to a max extension. If great defense alone can net players a max deal then Okogie needs a raise.

Jabari was horrible in the 1st half and Sengun was playing like he ate shrooms before the game with his smiling a**. Sometimes he plays like he's the only one on the court and misses players who are wide open.

Reed, once again, got the Rockets got back in the game. Started the 3rd quarter but the Rockets didn't run any plays for him. Revolving the offense around Reed when he's in the game would make it easier for everyone. Let him cook.

 

how you ask?

after his first dribble, he looked at the corner and saw the defense rotated to double him and saw bruce brown was open. then he went back to normal backing down and threw a "no look" pass.

 

Its pretty simple really

 

Good take, DFS is the perfect starter. Can okay defense, can shoot the 3, doesn't need the ball. Eason would be ideal but he is trying to get paid and does need the ball.

 

The Rockets will beat the top teams as long as KD and Sengun do not shiit the bed.