Rockets Keep Rolling With 109-93 Win Over Celtics

Well, this is pretty fun. The Rockets are not only winning, they’re rolling over most teams. Yes, they lost a winnable game in Dallas, with perhaps the wrong players missing, but they followed that up with a win over a depleted yet still dangerous OKC the next night. Now they’ve taken down Boston, admittedly on a back to back of their own, dropping their record to 5-2. That is to say, Boston had been very good so far, and beating them, even with a schedule advantage is no easy feat.

And yet, the Rockets are making it look pretty easy in most of their wins. Boston wasn’t depleted tonight, and the Rockets were fairly close to full strength as well, with recent absentees Reed Sheppard, Fred VanVleet and Marcus Smart playing tonight. Clint Capela was out, and that proved surprisingly troublesome at points in the game, as Boston is pretty big and physical at center, if generally fairly small elsewhere. Adams or Clint might have helped in that regard, but alas. Boston was without Classic Celtic Paul George, who was sitting on the second night of a back to back.

This game started out disjointed, and it more or less stayed that way. Lots of odd calls, anticipatory calls, and an illegible standard for fouls. Not terrible, but it did kill any hope of free flowing basketball. Until fairly late in the 3rd quarter the Rockets would step out to a small lead, of say 6-8 points, but couldn’t build on it. Boston would close the gap to a few points. The Rockets would build a small lead again. And repeat. In the fourth quarters the Rockets pulled away, and with the lead pushing 20 points, a bad shooting Boston could never catch up.

Boston lives or dies by three point shooting, and tonight, they died by it, going 12-42 from deep. Some of this was surely tired Celtic legs, but some of it has to be credited to the Rockets. It was a dismal shooting night from pretty much all the Boston stalwarts and quondam Rocket killers. Peyton “I cut my own hair.” Pritchard was 0-5 from deep. Jason “MSFT” Tatum was 1-7, Derek “Beardo” White was 1-5, and Sam”Snuggy” Hauser was 0-5. Only Baylor “Nebraksa!” Scheierman and Luka “The Other Luka” Garza had good shooting nights with any volume.

If you’d asked who’d be the high scorer tonight, Jason “Microsoft” Tatum, Kevin Durant or Alperen Sengun, would you have automatically picked Sengun? Possibly not, but Sengun has played not like an All Star, but an All NBA player this season. Tonight he went for 26pts on a very tidy 12-15 shooting, grabbed 7 boards, dished 10 assists to 1 TO, and made 1 of 2 of his 3pt shots, maintaining his great, though low volume, 3pt% percentage.

Tatum only scored 19, went 5-16, with nearly half his output coming from the free throw line. He had 6 boards, and 9 assists to 5 turnovers. Some in TDS land aren’t happy with Amen Thompson lately, but a lot of Amen’s value so far, in my view, has come from shutting down opposing stars fairly well. He’s still posting stats, he still is having trouble scoring inside, and also having any sort of effective mid range game. He seems to be struggling to find his place in a new order where even Kevin Durant isn’t notching high volume attempts.

We saw another great game from Jabari Smith, who is somehow turning into the “go to” guy for the Rockets when they simply have to have 3pt shot. Jabs was 5-10 shooting tonight, and 4-5 from three point range. He added 10 rebounds, and I think played some excellent defense, especially on the perimeter.

We also saw the Rockets Dr. Jeckyll and Mr Hyde player, Marcus Smart, in Mr. Hyde form tonight. He could not shoot it much at all, unlike last game, going 2-10 and 2-8 from three point range (though the makes came late to help seal the win). Smart did however open almost the entire Dark Arts Grimoire that so annoyed me when he played for Boston. I’ve never seen a player pick up not one, but two, fouls in a sequence with the ball not yet inbounded, but Smart did that tonight. I’m fairly sure both of those fouls were on Boston, but whatever the case, he definitely annoyed the hell out of Boston’s players. Even “Cap” himself, Jason Tatum showed human emotions at times. Did playing Boston mean something to Ime Udoka and Marcus Smart? Yes, I’d say it did.

Fred VanVleet continues his good playing, maculate shooting, and immaculate distribution. We also saw another quiet night, at a lowish 33 minutes from Kevin Durant, who took only 6 shots. He did add two blocks and a steal, and seems perfectly content. Opponents now have a tough choice with Sengun, Durant, and Smith. It’s really impossible to do what opponents did last season, and utterly pack the paint and dare the Rockets to make shots. It seems almost impossible to grab and blanket Durant as is the usual scheme against the Rockets and win. That message hasn’t permeated the NBA yet, and it will be interesting to see what the adjustment to the Rockets will be.

We saw a late return to shooting form from Reed Sheppard who played a pretty worthless stint in the first half, but contributed some good passing, defense, and two valuable three pointers as part of a Rockets run that buried Boston for good. Hopefully this will continue in his role off the bench. Tari Eason continues to be a force from the bench, mostly a force for good. Tonight he had 13pts on 5-8 shooting and a very strong 3-6 from three, and added 4 rebounds, 3 assists (2TO) and 2 blocks in his 27 minutes.

It’s all going very well, and I think we should not let the perfect (which the Rockets nearly are) be the enemy of the very good indeed.

If these trends continue? 70+ wins!

Anyway, the Rockets are alone at number one in the West, as Memphis was knocked off in OT by the Pelicans. I will admit that I didn’t think the Rockets would be #1 in the West at any point before the season started.

The Rockets play Antless Minnesota on Wednesday in Houston.