The Houston Rockets continued to cruise on Wednesday night, downing the Milwaukee Bucks in a 132-100 blowout victory that lifted the Rockets to a 5-0 record.
Both Alperen Sengun and Steven Adams were out, so with Jabari Smith starting at small ball center, the Rockets turned to their backcourt to make the difference, as Fred VanVleet and Amen Thompson led the way, with VanVleet scoring 24 points on 7-for-14 shooting for his best performance of the year so far. He also added 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals
while hitting 4-for-9 from deep. Thompson added 23 points on 10-for-16 from the floor, with 4 rebounds, 3 assists and a steal. Houston showed its depth with Marcus Smart also still out.
The Rockets got 18 from Kevin Durant and 14 from Jabari Smith Jr., with Durant finally taking some of the back seat he was going to need to take for this Rockets season to be successful. He took just 9 shots (5-for-9), as the “stand around and watch KD” offense is certainly less prevalent this season. Welcome back, Fred? Ime finally getting out of his own way? Tell us in the comments your thoughts.
Smith’s 14 came on just 4-for-12 shooting, as he’s come down to earth offensively a bit after his hot start — though he was 3-for-6 from three — but the defense continues to impress, and Smith was a game-leading +23 when on the court last night.
The Rockets also got a nice game from double Bogdan, as poured in 16 points and 4 assists in just 15 minutes of action. He hit 4-for-5 from deep and has already contributed more to the Rockets than Dorian Finney-Smith did all of last season. Clint Capela added 10 points, 8 boards, 3 steals and 2 blocks in a bit of a throwback performance for Clint coming off of the bench.
The Bucks were led by Tyler Herro with 23 points and Jaime Jaquez Jr. had 19, but the big story was the Houston held the Bucks to just 40 percent shooting on the night whille hitting 55 percent of their own shots, and they won the rebound battle, shot 17-for-38 from deep, had more points in the paint and more fast break points in what was a total domination.
Granted, the Bucks are a bad team this year, but the Rockets were down three rotation members and still pulled off a complete blowout. They’ve now beaten the Mavs, Hawks twice, Spurs and Bucks, but have games against Dallas, OKC, Boston and Minnesota coming up, so the schedule is about to get harder, but at the moment, your Houston Rockets have the best record in basketball.
