HOUSTON (SportsRadio 610)- With the Rockets expected to be one of the NBA’s youngest teams when the season opens next week, head coach Stephen Silas has had to change throughout the course of training camp and in the Rockets three preseason games.
“It's my nature to fix, fix, fix, fix fix, instead of understanding that sometimes we just got to go through it,” Silas said Wednesday. “It will take a little bit longer to get things fixed than I want it to be.”
The Rockets have played three preseason games and while Silas says they haven’t been good at one facet of the game for all three contests, they have flashed many positives, even in Monday’s loss to Toronto where they trailed by 24 after three quarters.
“Our half court defense was really good,” Silas said. “Our transition defense wasn't great, but it was a product of us turning the ball over. But once we got them in the half court set, our points per possession were very low, and we stuck to our principles defensively, and we're early with our low man,and we had ball pressure, so that was the main positive that came from the Toronto game.”
The Raptors posed a challenge the Rockets didn’t face in their first two preseason games against the Washington Wizards and Miami Heat.
“I think Toronto was probably the hardest defensive opposition that we had,” Rockets guard Jalen Green said. “They were getting into us, forcing us to speed up, and we weren’t even getting into the offense like that. “That was our first time seeing that this year.”
The Rockets will play one last game before taking the floor for real next week in Minnesota. Silas said he’ll approach Friday’s game in San Antonio like it’s a normal game, so that will give them another 48 minutes to get used to one another in a game atmosphere against an opposing defense.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” Rockets guard D.J. Augustin said. “We have a lot of work to do this whole season. We have a lot of work ahead of us, we have a very young team and just try to keep building everyday.”