The Houston Rockets came into Thursday night’s game boasting the NBA’s best home record at 15-3. Early in the matchup against the Spurs it looked as if the Rockets would be cruising their way to a 16th
home win. The Rockets shot nearly 50-percent from the field in the first half. The ball movement was crisp, the Rockets were getting good looks and knocking them down. At one point the Rockets led by 16 points.
The Rockets had gotten Victor Wembanyama into foul trouble, and he was forced to spend most of the third quarter on the bench with 4 fouls. Advantage Spurs. They scored 30 points in the third quarter outscoring the Rockets 30 to 24 trimming the Rockets lead to just two points going into the final period. All of the ball movement and player movement that served the Rockets so well in the first half disappeared as San Antonio’s defensive intensity picked up significantly, thanks in large part to the efforts of Stephon Castle, who spent time guarding Alperen Sengun and Kevin Durant.
In the fourth quarter it all fell apart. The Rockets “offense” turned into looking around for Kevin Durant or Sengun to get themselves free to go one-on-five with the Spurs while the others either watched or turned the ball over. The Rockets did not score a single field goal in the fourth until 5:46 to go in the quarter. They would finish having only scored 13 points on 4 made shots from the field. The Rockets shot 28-percent in the second half, ending the game at 39.4 percent. The offensive struggles lead to poor effort on the defensive end. The Spurs finished the game with 72 points in the paint and 38 points off the bench.
Not a single Rockets starter was a positive plus/minus in the game. Alperen Sengun scored 18 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists, but he had to work extra hard for all of it. Kevin Durant scored 24 points on 8-of-17 shooting but he also had trouble finding a rhythm in the fourth quarter along with all of his teammates. Amen Thompson was great for three quarters, and then the Spurs switched Wembanyama to his primary defender and he looked flustered and unsure how to respond. He finished with 25 points but only had 2 points in the final quarter.
Wembanyama ended up with 28 points, 16 rebounds, and 5 blocked shots. Dylan Harper and Keldon Johnson both scored 16 and 17 points respectively. For the second time this season the San Antonio Spurs looked like the best team in Texas. The Rockets will continue to deal with the narrative of needing a veteran point guard in order to seriously compete for a NBA title this season, and this game will likely be submitted as evidence supporting that. The Rockets head to Atlanta to take on the Hawks on Friday night for the second game of this back-to-back.
