After an impressive victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday night the Houston Rockets have proven that they are playoff-ready.
For Oklahoma City (64-13), who had won 11 straight games before Friday’s 125-111 loss to the Rockets and appeared to be in control of their fate after just losing twice since the All-Star break, it was an odd sight. However, Houston, which secured a playoff spot earlier this week, appears to have turned a corner ahead of its first postseason appearance in four years and is keen to make a statement to the NBA’s other teams.
The Rockets won by a wide margin of victory after the Thunder held the lead for just 44 seconds. Alperen Şengün contributed 31 points on 11-of-21 shooting, while Jalen Green led all scorers with 34 points on 11-of-24 shooting. The NBA’s top scorer, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, finished the game with 22 points on 22 shots. Houston gained home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs and solidified its hold on the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference with the victory.
Rockets coach Ime Udoka remarked:
“We’ve been harping on that since (the last) 20 games. Just to get better in many ways toward the end of the season. Staying healthy and playing your best going into the playoffs are two goals, and both have been met. Possessing the depth we do while also anticipating what is ahead is a luxury.
“We want to play good basketball, tighten up, and start feeling like we’re in the playoffs because we have four good opponents coming up.”
Without a doubt, the Rockets are viewing the final five games of the regular season as a litmus test. Tankathon claims that the Rockets have the NBA’s most difficult remaining schedule. Furthermore, these games matter more than merely seeding, since every club Houston will play from now until the end of the season is a Western Conference playoff team.
According to Udoka:
“You might keep (the schematics) vanilla depending on the importance of the game. However, you begin to deploy those tactics if it’s a must-win situation and you need to do things like tonight to remove them from some of their recent successes against us. We were able to go over their game plan and go over a lot of things because we had two practices.
“We hit them with more. That is how it will appear in the playoffs. very particular about individuals and plays, which is what we accomplished tonight.”
It was crucial to counteract Houston’s usual physical edge in their fifth and final match with Oklahoma City. Dillon Brooks received a suspension after receiving his 16th technical foul of the season. However, Udoka chose to start reserve center Steven Adams rather than Tari Eason or Jabari Smith Jr.
Particularly from the first tip, the Rockets’ choice to select Adams above other possibilities appeared to be a hiccup in the Thunder’s game plan. Coach Mark Daigneault called a timeout less than two minutes into the game because his players were unsure of what was going on on the court.
Adams’ presence in the starting lineup — and a large reason why the dual-big combination has worked thus far — is because of his physicality, which reveals itself at both ends of the floor. Adams’ skill around the boards is well known offensively; in the game against Oklahoma City, he pulled down 12 rebounds, six of which were offensive. Even at age 31 and with a long history of injuries, Adams’ defensive speed is underestimated.
The Rockets’ portrayal as a dark horse before the postseason was brought home to us on Friday night. They have the agility to punish teams in the open floor (they dominated the transition battle 19 to 8), and they can swarm defensively, throwing Gilgeous-Alexander a barrage of looks in what could be a preview of what we might see from the Rockets in the NBA Playoffs.
