If the Rockets are going to win in Philadelphia, the first six minutes will decide exactly how hard they have to work for it.<\/p>\n
1. Stay vertical in the paint.<\/p>\n
Everything starts with Alperen \u015eeng\u00fcn. Without Steven Adams available, \u015eeng\u00fcn has to anchor the interior without gifting early fouls. The goal isn\u2019t shutting down Joel Embiid outright. It\u2019s making every touch costly and staying on the floor.<\/p>\n
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2. Protect the ball like it\u2019s precious- because it is.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia thrives on live-ball turnovers. If Amen Thompson and Reed Sheppard get Houston into its sets cleanly, the Rockets can control pace instead of chasing it.<\/p>\n
3. Let Kevin Durant bend the defense first.<\/p>\n
Houston doesn\u2019t need early shot-making from Kevin Durant- they need his gravity. If the ball moves after the defense reacts to him, the floor opens naturally.<\/p>\n
4. Win the first rebounding battle.<\/p>\n
Misses are coming. That\u2019s fine. What can\u2019t happen is one-and-done possessions. Extra chances keep the game grounded and prevent Philadelphia from running.<\/p>\n
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5. Don\u2019t speed it up to fix it.<\/p>\n
If the offense stalls, resist the urge to rush. Houston has been at its best lately when they let the game breathe and trust their structure.<\/p>\n
If Houston clears that opening stretch without handing over early momentum, the game slows, rotations settle, and the Rockets get to play their brand instead of chasing Philly\u2019s tempo all night.<\/p>\n
Survive the first six minutes. If they do that, the rest becomes playable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the Rockets are going to win in Philadelphia, the first six minutes will decide exactly how hard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[883,7,292,936,938,6,678,1081,211,962,1101],"class_list":{"0":"post-554126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-amen-thompson","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-joel-embiid","12":"tag-kevin-durant","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-reed-sheppard","16":"tag-rockets","17":"tag-steven-adams","18":"tag-the-rockets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115941169205868339","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554126","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=554126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}