[Feigen] Rockets have won 5 in a row, have plenty to work on ahead of Nuggets

On Friday, the Rockets were thrilled to have found a way to win a game in which they were not at their best. By Saturday, they sought to make the corrections needed to be at their best, or at least closer to it.

That might be needed with the reigning champion Denver Nuggets coming to Toyota Center on Sunday and bringing the NBA’s best record (8-1), along with whatever benefits will come from having three days off since topping the Golden State Warriors in Denver on Wednesday.

The Rockets rallied to top the Pelicans on Friday despite some instances when they reverted to issues in the first games of the season, with a flurry of assignment mistakes defensively and a stretch with too much one-on-one play when the Pelicans took a double-digit lead. Their workout on Saturday was more of a video session and walk-through to address those concerns.

“Just some little mistakes with losing shooters,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “(Jordan) Hawkins to start the third quarter, he hadn’t scored in the first half and then we went under some screens that gets him going. The attention to detail with (Zion) Williamson to start the game, to keep him away from his strong hand. He got to his spots on the floor. Those, and the biggest thing was individual shot selection.

“It felt like last night was the first time in a while we tried to do it on our own a little bit when we were in a little bit of a hole. So, continue to trust your guys, work through each other, get the easy shot. I was talking about how it compounds. You think it’s just one shot, but four or five or six guys are doing that, or four or five or six guys are making mistakes on the defensive end, it kind of adds up and starts to snowball.”

The goal, he said, was to get back to relying on ball movement and playing with discipline defensively.

The first challenge in defending the Nuggets could be in deciding how to try to deal with center Nikoka Jokić, the Nuggets’ leader in scoring, assists and rebounds, and the NBA leader in player impact score. The Rockets have avoided double-teaming this season, but could be hesitant to switch as often as they have. The Nuggets’ movement without the ball will test the improvement in defending those actions.

“It’s somewhat pick your poison,” Udoka said. “You try to go after him, take it out of his hands, and he’s very good obviously at picking the gym apart and getting guys involved. Or, you go one-on-one with him and let him score and kind of keep everyone else locked down. We’re looking at both. We’ll see what we want to do. Either way, he’s really good at doing both.

“Especially with (Jamal) Murray out, they’re relying on (Jokić) to get everyone else involved, besides scoring. The best for both worlds for them is (Jokić scoring in) that mid-20 range with 11 assists and getting everyone involved vs. scoring a lot and holding the assists numbers down. We’ll … just try to keep him off-balance, not give him a steady diet of anything.”

The meeting with the Nuggets might not have come at the best time. The Rockets might have been better served to face Denver after next week’s break than before. But if they are to face the league’s best team, they at least do it with the momentum of a five-game winning streak.

“I keep saying, every game presents its own challenges, but you’d like to be playing well going into a game against the defending champs, not like we played our best last night. But regardless, I wouldn’t say it’s the best time to play them, but we are playing with some confidence so it’s a good barometer at this point.

“We have a few days off so we can put everything into this game Sunday and rest up for the three-game road trip.”