HOUSTON (SportsRadio 610)- The Rockets started the 2024-25 season by going 1-1 in home games against Charlotte and Memphis and then splitting a pair in San Antonio. Here are four observations from what we've seen thus far from a team with expectations of ending a four-year postseason drought.
Jalen Green has taken a leap
Green has been the Rockets best player through four games, and he's been their best player by a wide margin. He's scoring 28.8 points per game, and while Green hasn't been overly efficient, he is shooting 41.3 percent from behind the three-point line, a considerable improvement from the 33.7 percent he shot from long distance through the first three seasons of his NBA career.
"He obviously took a step last year and had a crazy month of March, so the carry over there is good offensively," Rockets head coach Ime Udoka said while lauding Green for his playmaking, specifically the assist on Fred VanVleet's game sealing three on Monday.
Green is driving to the basket at roughly the same rate as he did last season, but those drives have been more productive, thanks to 73.7 percent shooting on shots from inside the restricted area and 59.3 percent shooting from shots within eight feet, up from 61.7 percent and 54.9 percent from last season. Green is also attempting six free throws per game, an increase of almost 40 percent from last season.
As good as Green has been offensively, his biggest area of improvement looks to be at the defensive end of the floor, where he's locked guys up on the ball.
"(He) takes pride in not being a weak link out there," Udoka said. "Gotta continue to grow with some of the off ball stuff and rebounding, but his one-on-one individual defense has been really good."
Alperen Sengun's early season struggles
Sengun was the best player on the floor during the first half of the Rockets season opener against the Hornets. He finished that first 24 minutes with 19 points on 7-of-13 shooting and 13 rebounds, but he was just 3-of-9 in the second half, and he's averaging 11.3 points on 34 percent shooting over the last three games, while sitting in crunch time.
"I would say the conditioning part is one thing for everybody," Udoka said. "I think you see it with guys getting tired at times."
Udoka thinks the faster pace the Rockets are trying to play with is having a negative impact on Sengun's production, but he belives the matchups are impacting him as well.
After going up against the seven-foot Nick Richards in last week's opener, Sengun has dealt with Zach Edey and Victor Wembanyama, who both stand 7-foot-4.
"I'm not worried about Alpi," Udoka said. "He's going to bounce back, and we just need to find ways to move him around and get him the advantages he likes, but teams have gone after him pretty much from the start of the season, I know Charlotte did, San Antonio did, so he's making the right read, kicking it out and getting guys wide open shots, and that's all you can ask for."
The Rockets go as their offensive rebounding goes
The Rockets scored 60 points in the first half of their season-opener against the Hornets even though they shot less than 40 percent from the field, 32 percent from behind the three-point line, while attempting just seven free throws, so how did they hit the 60-point mark? 11 offensive rebounds, leading to 19 second chance points.
The Rockets shot 33 percent in the second, but attempted 13 free throws, so why did they only score 45 points? They grabbed just five offensive rebounds, leading to two second chance points.
On Saturday in San Antonio, the Rockets grabbed one offensive rebound in a first half where they missed 30 shots and trailed by 19. They made up 18 points of that deficit in the second half by shooting the ball better, but they also got an offensive rebound on 7-of-24 missed shots, resulting in 12 second chance points.
Houston sits at 16th in three-point shooting, but only Utah is shooting worse overall. Offensive rebounding is one way to cover up for poor shooting stretches, which are almost unavoidable.
"If for one possession let's say you're a, I don't know, 40 percent team shooting. If you get two of them- 80 percent," Rockets center Steven Adams said. "That's a good way to look at it."
Through the first four games of the season, the Rockets are the NBA's third best offensive rebounding team, grabbing 36.4 percent of their misses, which has led to 20.3 second chance points per game.
"It's very demoralizing as a defense," Adams said. "You give up a bunch of offensive rebounds, it's just tough. Defense is so tough in the NBA, and then you have to do it again and again. It's tough, dude."
Reed Sheppard's growing pains
Expectations are always going to be high for the third pick of the draft, but it's important to remember that the NBA is filled with the best players in the world, so expecting a 20-year old to have success right off the bat is a little pie in the sky, and Sheppard is experiencing that.
Sheppard was the second man off Udoka's bench and played 16 minutes during last week's season-opener, but he has seen his minutes drop from 13 on Friday to six on Saturday. He played just three minutes on Monday in San Antonio and sat the entire second half.
Sheppard is shooting 33 percent from the field and from behind the three-point line through the first four games of his NBA career, and while ultimately he'll be fine, expectations should probably be tempered a bit for what he can produce for at least the first part of the season.
