It has not been a straightforward season filled with fulfilled expectations for most teams around the NBA, and the Houston Rockets can now be added to that list. After starting the year with a red-hot offense despite the absence of Fred VanVleet, the Rockets have cooled off considerably. They are just 1\u20134 in their last five games, with their offense in particular struggling.<\/p>\n
Rather shockingly, Houston lost to the Trail Blazers and the Kings, and also suffered a blowout defeat at the hands of the Thunder. Kevin Durant is beginning to show signs of frustration similar to what he displayed a year ago with the Suns. Houston is still 23-15 and sitting sixth in the Western Conference, but that position is far from secure, with the Warriors, Trail Blazers, and Phoenix close behind.<\/p>\n
One player who can certainly improve is Alperen Sengun<\/a>. The Turkish star was one of the main reasons Houston got off to such a strong start in October. Now, he appears to be regressing, and Kendrick Perkins is calling him out for it. Speaking on the latest edition of NBA on ESPN, Perkins said the Rockets need their big man to perform at a higher level if they hope to remain competitive in the cutthroat Western Conference.<\/p>\n \u201cI got to look at Alperen Sengun. The Rockets don\u2019t need All-Star Sengun. They need All-NBA Sengun. And that\u2019s what we were seeing at the beginning of the season. He was averaging damn near 30,\u201d Perkins stated.<\/p>\n At the beginning of the year, Sengun was a force to be reckoned with. He even got dubbed \u201cMini Jokic\u201d for his ability to stretch the floor and make everyone better around him. But his stats have significantly dropped. He was averaging roughly 24 points per game in October, but by January his production had dipped to around 17.<\/p>\n Sengun has been getting outplayed by every big he\u2019s had to go up against over the last couple of weeks. Perkins pointed out how much Chet Holmgren<\/a> bodied him in the Rockets latest loss against OKC.<\/p>\n \u201cSmall ball. It\u2019s you and Chet. Mano a mano. You\u2019ve got to be able to capitalize on that. Not flopping for a foul. Chet outplayed him last night. Sengun has to elevate his game even more,\u201d stated<\/a> the one-time champion.<\/p>\n It is not just Sengun who is costing Houston games. Through the first 30 games of the season, the Rockets<\/a> were a top-five offense in the league. Over their last 10 games, however, they have fallen into the bottom five.<\/p>\n On the same broadcast, journalist Brian Windhorst<\/a> questioned whether this is the Rockets\u2019 true identity or simply a January slump, which could very well be a real thing. Top teams like the Knicks, the Lakers, and now the Rockets are all performing worse<\/a> than they did just one month ago.<\/p>\n The good news is that there is still plenty of time for all of these teams, Houston in particular, to bounce back. The bad news is that this stretch has exposed a number of weaknesses, and the Rockets will need to adapt or risk a quick exit once the postseason arrives.<\/p>\n This stretch feels more like a fork-in-the-road moment for Houston than a full-blown crisis. Young teams tend to hit walls, and the ones that last are those that respond instead of spiraling when the league adjusts to them. The Rockets do not need to reinvent themselves, but they do need to rediscover the edge and confidence that made them so dangerous early on, especially when games turn physical and messy.<\/p>\n If Sengun and the offense can punch back instead of fading as the pressure ramps up, this stretch could prove to be a growing pain rather than a warning sign. If not, the Western Conference will not wait around for them to figure it out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has not been a straightforward season filled with fulfilled expectations for most teams around the NBA, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[1307,7,292,194,4066,2058,6,211],"class_list":{"0":"post-542116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-rockets","8":"tag-alperen-sengun","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-rockets","12":"tag-houstonrockets","13":"tag-kendrick-perkins","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-rockets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115908697649178218","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}