Down the stretch on Wednesday, when it became obvious that the short-handed Milwaukee Bucks refused to roll over, the Houston Rockets faced a defensive tactic that\u2019d previously given them fits.<\/p>\n
The Bucks aggressively double-teamed Kevin Durant in the fourth quarter, testing the Rockets to see if they\u2019d wilt like they did when the Los Angeles Lakers employed the same strategy last month.<\/p>\n
But this time the Rockets held firm and held on, claiming a 119-113 victory that extended their winning streak to four games in advance of the Utah Jazz visiting Houston on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Rockets (47-29) effectively moved the ball from Durant to Alperen Sengun, Amen Thompson or Tari Eason without committing cataclysmic turnovers. Their late-game execution wasn\u2019t pristine, but at least the Rockets didn\u2019t turn the ball over repeatedly under duress.<\/p>\n
Houston recorded only eight turnovers, continuing a recent pattern of improved ball security. The Rockets\u2019 recent pivot away from distressing live-ball turnovers has undergirded an offense that\u2019s otherwise efficient, with ample scoring options.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re being smart with the ball now a little bit,\u201d Sengun said. \u201cWe have some off-ball actions. We don\u2019t run the pick-and-roll the whole game now. I think we\u2019ve fixed some stuff.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing smart with the ball is helping us so we don\u2019t have to run back in transition defense. That stuff is helping us for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rockets survived despite poor shooting games from Durant (7 for 16), Jabari Smith Jr. (5 for 15) and Eason (1 for 8). Sengun (9 for 13) and Reed Sheppard, who made a career-high nine 3-pointers en route to a team-high 27 points, offset the shooting woes of their teammates and led the way to victory after Milwaukee cut a 20-point deficit to four.<\/p>\n
That Houston struggled to close out the Bucks, who were missing their top six scorers, only reinforced the narrative that the Rockets play to the level of their competition. Utah (21-56) has lost 11 of 12 games, meaning the Rockets\u2019 ability to focus against a lesser foe will be tested again.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough against certain teams with nothing to lose coming in playing free,\u201d Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. \u201cBut encouraged in the other way, that we\u2019ve lost some games like this this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we\u2019d like to maintain those leads and not watch them dwindle.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Jazz are one game ahead of the Sacramento Kings for last place in the Western Conference. But for all the conversation around the NBA concerning tanking, the Jazz have at least one person in their corner validating their effort and commitment to professionalism.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey compete, they play hard, they share the ball,\u201d Jazz coach Will Hardy said. \u201cSome nights, certain guys play well; some nights they struggle a little bit. I\u2019m really proud of this group of guys.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can feel it in the building, you really can. Our fans have been incredible all season, but I also think that they\u2019re feeding off the energy of these guys. It\u2019s hard not to root for them. They really bring it every night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brice Sensabaugh put up 28 points for Utah in a 130-117 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Wednesday. Sensabaugh has stepped up with top scorers Lauri Markkanen and Keyonte George sidelined, averaging a career-best 14.5 points through 71 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Down the stretch on Wednesday, when it became obvious that the short-handed Milwaukee Bucks refused to roll over,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3785],"tags":[7,423,6,422,427,3972],"class_list":{"0":"post-695288","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-jazz","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-jazz","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-utah","12":"tag-utah-jazz","13":"tag-utahjazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116338887737240828","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695288","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=695288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}