I’ll ask for your understanding with another recap that is getting started at about 2am where I am. That’s fairly late by almost any standard, even Rockets fandom. Still, here I am, and here it is. Please pardon any errors, it’s now 3am.
A win tonight would be significant for the Rockets in several ways. First, it would make 7 wins in a row, and 8 wins out of the past 10 games. This is great to see heading for the post season. Not all their opponents have been top drawer, but winning games, most of them
handily is what you’d want to see. Second, it puts last season’s win total of 52 wins within reach. Third, with the Rockets most likely post season opponent being the Los Angeles Lakers, it keeps the hope of swapping fifth place for fourth, and gaining home court advantage in the series.
Tonight didn’t start out like any of those things would happen. Phoenix came out blazing, like, well, the Sun, so hot was their shooting. The Rockets might have been visible to the crew of the Artemis mission, on the dark side of the moon. Phoenix won the quarter 37-21, in a start that has little to recommend it for the Rockets, but a lot for the Suns. Phoenix was more energetic, more physical, more ready to throw themselves at the floor, something they’d do so often tonight they might have trouble sitting down tomorrow.
The Rockets, after a start to the second quarter that promised much the same as the first began to rally, and we saw that Phoenix, despite some very good players, is by no means an especially deep, or big, team. The Rockets made up ground, scoring 33 to the Suns 20, and so only trailed by 3pts at the half. You might not believe in momentum, but the Rockets size and athleticism began to tell against Phoenix, and the team closed with a strong run.
They started the third quarter well, too. But the Suns, mostly on the strength of Devin Booker making shots, and drawing a lot of fouls, played the Rockets even, so the Rockets ended down three as the fourth quarter began.
This time it was the Rockets who were on fire, and they started the quarter on an 8-0 run. The Rockets would stay hot, and locked in on defense, and ended up winning the quarter 38-21, almost exactly reversing the first quarter. Phoenix looked gassed by early in the 4th, and the Rockets started playing downhill, and playing, moreover, smart basketball. They didn’t rush shots, they supported Thompson and Sengun with cuts to the basket and movement. In the end it ended up a fairly comfortable win, after starting so poorly.
Phoenix is not a world beater, but they aren’t bad. They’re 7th in the Western conference, and likely to stay there.
Tonight saw excellent games from a number of Rockets. First is Jabari Smith. Jaswishy was in the building tonight. You might not think it, seeing Smith went 6-18, but he was 5-13 from three point range (38%). That’s great for two reasons, one, he made his shots from deep, and two, he took a lot of them. He added some rebounds, and generally played the best overall game we’ve seen from him in a while, as his defense was good.
Kevin Durant did his usual, 24pts, in an unusual way, he took 9 threes, and made 5 of them. That again makes 8-20 look a lot better.
Amen Thompson matched up on defense and offense against Jalen Green for the first time, and also against Dillon Brooks. It’s safe to say Amen came out ahead, scoring 22 on 10-16 shooting, adding 11 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals and a block, compared to Jalen Green going a familiar 5-14 and 0-4 from deep, in his “good at 2s and not 3s, or vice versa” manner. Dillon Brooks was worse, and got whatever the opposite of revenge is tonight, going 3-12, with little else to add. Devin Booker did his best to shoot, and free throw his way to a win, scoring 31 points, and going a whopping 15-16 from the FT line. The Rockets shot the same number of free throws as Devin Booker, which is something special. The Suns 39-16 FT advantage was countered somewhat by the Rockets 56-34 rebound edge. Amen Thompson had more rebounds than Mark Williams, the Suns center, and Reed Sheppard in 21 minutes had as many as the next highest Sun, at 5.
This was in the end a good win in a lot of ways for the Rockets. Not only did they dig out of a hole, but we saw the return of Tari Eason, Defensive Menace. Tari played 31 effective minutes, and had three steals, but many, many, more successful defensive pressures. That version of Tari Eason is a huge advantage for the Rockets. Perhaps the team is peaking just in time for the post season?
The Rockets have a chance to go for eight straight on Thursday, back home, and back to a more normal start time, against the 76ers. Their final three games will be played in Houston, so perhaps they can finish the year winning 10 in a row, and surpassing last season’s win total?
