The Houston Rockets were facing and Oklahoma City Thunder squad missing Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as well as Jalen Williams and Ajay Wilson, but a win is a win, and the Rockets needed one to get back on track. Alperen Sengun finished with 17 points, 12 rebounds, 11 assists, 3 steals and 3 blocks to lead the Rockets with his second triple double of the season. He was 6-for-12 from the floor and also really had things going as a facilitator.<\/p>\n
Houston was led on scoring, however, by Tari Eason, who finished with 26 points, 8 boards and 3 steals. The Rockets wisely kept Eason out of trade talks, as they look for an extension after the season, when Eason will be a restricted free agent. Eason was 5-for-13 from three, and when he\u2019s playing well, the Rockets are a better team. They need him playing \u2014 Eason has only played in 60 percent of his possible games as a Rocket.<\/p>\n
Kevin Durant was just 6-for-10 shooting for 20 points, 1 rebound, 4 assists, a steal and a block. The Rockets are also a better team when Durant isn\u2019t shooting the ball 20-plus times, and that played itself out here against the Thunder, though there were some clutch Durant moments down the stretch, including a shot that out the Rockets up six with just a minute left in the game. This is how the Rockets need to operate. Team ball the whole way, and then let KD close it out.<\/p>\n
Jabari Smith Jr. had another good game, and he seems to be breaking out of his slump a little bit. Jabari finished with 22 points, 10 boards, a steal and a block, as well as played some pretty good defense. The guy is painfully streaky player, which is not out of the ordinary for a 22-year-old. I still see the vision with Jabari, though I\u2019ve admittedly been on the Smith train since the beginning, so I may be biased, but it\u2019s certainly not yet time to give up on his long-term success.<\/p>\n
Reed Sheppard finished with 16 points, 3 rebounds, 6 assists, and 3 steals, rounding out every Rockets starter in double figures, though he continues to struggle from three, going just 1-for-4. The Rockets got very little from their bench, as Houston\u2019s previously vaunted depth has taken a huge hit. The Rockets got 11 total bench points, with 8 coming from JD Davison. Who\u2019s going to provide scoring punch off of the bench for Houston right now?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an issue for another day, however, as the Rockets are back on the winning track in the meantime, moving to 32-19 on the season. The Rockets will be back in action on Tuesday against the L.A. Clippers, as they play back-to-back nights in H-town before the break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Rockets were facing and Oklahoma City Thunder squad missing Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as well as Jalen Williams…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,292,194,4066,6,211,52385],"class_list":{"0":"post-590755","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-rockets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-rockets","11":"tag-houstonrockets","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-rockets","14":"tag-rockets-scores"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116035844328937256","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590755","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=590755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}