{"id":714212,"date":"2026-04-19T21:54:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T21:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/714212\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T21:54:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T21:54:45","slug":"southwest-notes-durant-rockets-harper-grizzlies-pelicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/714212\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Notes: Durant, Rockets, Harper, Grizzlies, Pelicans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rockets were playing without<\/a> Kevin Durant<\/a>, who\u2019s dealing with a right knee contusion, in yesterday\u2019s loss at the Lakers. \u201cSeveral people\u201d who watched the 37-year-old forward work out a couple hours before Saturday\u2019s game said Durant wasn\u2019t moving well and appeared to be in a good deal of pain, according to Sam Amick of The Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Whether or not Durant is active for the second game of the series on Tuesday, the Rockets need a much better performance from Alperen Sengun<\/a>, writes William Guillory of The Athletic<\/a>. The All-Star center finished with 19 points, eight rebounds and six assists, but shot just 6-of-19 from the field and made several \u201cuncharacteristic mistakes\u201d which negatively impacted the team\u2019s offense, per Guillory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI missed a lot of shots, the shots I was making (in the past),\u201d Sengun said. \u201cIt happens. It\u2019s the first game \u2014 the first away game. It\u2019s going to come back. I\u2019m not upset about it. Of course, I\u2019m upset about the loss, but I\u2019m going to bounce back next game and come stronger. I\u2019m going to have a different mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second-year guard Reed Sheppard<\/a> (17 points on 6-of-20 shooting) is another player who needs to step up for Houston in Game 2, Guillory adds.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more from the Southwest:<\/p>\n

Spurs guard Dylan Harper<\/a> jammed his left thumb in last Sunday\u2019s regular season finale, but he\u2019s confident the injury to his shooting hand won\u2019t be an issue as the playoffs get underway, according to Tom Orsborn of The San Antonio Express-News<\/a>. Last year\u2019s No. 2 overall pick isn\u2019t on the injury report and was a full participant in all three of San Antonio\u2019s practices over the last week. \u201cRested it for a little bit, got back, felt fine,\u201d Harper said at shootaround. \u201cFelt like myself, so it\u2019s all good. \u2026 The wrap shouldn\u2019t affect me. I think that it\u2019s more of a mental game, a mind game and just not trying to feed into that.\u201d
\nDeciding whether to trade or keep Ja Morant<\/a>, drafting the best players available, and adding future assets are among the priorities for the Grizzlies ahead of the offseason, per Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/a> (subscriber link).
\nWhile head of basketball operations Joe Dumars expressed optimism about the Pelicans\u2018 future at his exit interview, the team\u2019s fans are frustrated with being a \u201cbottom feeder\u201d and Dumars needs to improve the roster and hire the right head coach ahead of 2026\/27, says Rod Walker of NOLA.com<\/a>. \u201cFor the most part, we have some pretty good contracts set up with those guys,\u201d Dumars said. \u201cBetween the age (of our roster) and the contracts, it gives us flexibility to do what you need to do going forward. If there is something you need to do going forward, you\u2019re in a pretty position to improve your team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rockets were playing without Kevin Durant, who\u2019s dealing with a right knee contusion, in yesterday\u2019s loss at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3795],"tags":[1307,7,226,294,178,938,293,177,4070,6,1081],"class_list":{"0":"post-714212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-alperen-sengun","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-dylan-harper","11":"tag-grizzlies","12":"tag-ja-morant","13":"tag-kevin-durant","14":"tag-memphis","15":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","16":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-reed-sheppard"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116433602519596395","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714212","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=714212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}