Sorry for the late recap, y’all. Our writer was stuck in airport mess, and I didn’t find out until this morning. Anyway, the Houston Rockets won their thrid game in a row on Friday night after a monster game from Alperen Sengun, defeating the Jazz 125-118. Alpie went for 43 points, 12 rebounds, and 5 assists on 17-for-24 shooting, becoming just the third player in Rockets history alongside Hakeem Olajuwon and Yao Ming to put up that stat line on 70 percent-plus shooting.
The Rockets also got 22 points and 6 assists from Kevin Durant, who showed off some passing chops in this one despite shooting just 5-for-14. They got 17 points, 3 assists and zero turnovers from Fed VanVleet, 12 points and 10 boards for Amen Thompson, as well as 14 points and 11 boards from Tari Eason off of the bench.
This game was closer than it needed to be at home against the 1-11 Jazz, as the Jazz held close into the final minutes until VanVleet closed to door with some timely scoring to thankfully not waste Sengun’s nuclear night.
Jabari Smith Jr. and Reed Sheppard combined to go 2-for-16 from the field and 1-for-11 from three, so the Rockets had to get role player help elsewhere — Bogdan Bogdanovich went 3-for-4 from deep for 11 points — and the defense wasn’t nearly as tight as it should have been against a bottom-feeder. The Rockets did allow the Jazz to shoot 46 percent, but they ultimately pulled off the win to move to 10-3 on the season.
The Jazz were led by Darryn Peterson with 28 points, Keyonte George with 27 and Ace Bailey with 21.
The Rockets are off tonight, but they will return to action on Sunday, where they will kick off a back-to-back set with a matchup against the Washington Wizards, rolling into another road game against the Miami Heat on Monday.
