HOUSTON (SportsRadio 610)- On the opening possession of the Rockets 107-92 Monday night win over the Washington Wizards, Alperen Sengun received a bounce pass from Amen Thompson at the top of the key with five seconds left on the shot clock.
He turned, fake left and drove right, past rookie center Alex Sarr, and threw down a right-handed dunk over the second pick of June’s draft.
It was the start of a big night for the Rockets center, who finished with 27 points, on 12-of-19 shooting, and 17 rebounds.
“That’s what I do,” Sengun said. “Dominate in the paint, and then I was just playing hard.”
Sengun was matched up against Sarr most of the night, and Sarr didn’t stand a chance against the Rockets’ center. If Sengun wasn’t overwhelming the 19-year old with skill, he was doing so with power, and the Wizards rarely sent help.
“We felt like he had an advantage, and it was obviously working there,” Rockets head coach Ime Udoka said.
Sengun scored 14 points on 7-of-14 shooting through the game’s first three quarters, but when Kyle Kuzma’s finger roll with 7:26 left to play whittled the Rockets 16-point lead down to six, Sengun took over.
He beat Sarr for a dunk on the first play out of a timeout to increase the Rockets lead to eight, and then scored the Rockets next nine points to extend their lead to a dozen. Sengun made all five of his field goals in the quarter, finishing with the final stanza with 13 points.
“It’s a luxury (to have a center that score),” Udoka said. “I've been around some really good scoring bigs, and that settles the team (down) all the time. You don't want to be just permanent based or relying on pick and roll every time. It's great to have that option.”
VanVleet’s absence is felt
A sore left hamstring forced Fred VanVleet to miss Monday’s game, and while his shot has not fallen through the first 10 games of the season, his presence was sorely missed against Washington.
“Fred is the brain of this team,” Sengun said. “He calls the sets, he sets up the team all the time.”
The Rockets finished with a 104.9 offensive rating on Monday, against the league’s third worst defense, which would be second worst in the NBA for the season, while finishing with a season-high 21 turnovers, and a season-low 13 assists and 23 three-point attempts.
Udoka called his team’s offensive performance against the Wizards “up and down”.
“It's good when we get stops and get out and run,” he said. “Kind of equal opportunity in the half court, just a little slow at times, stagnant, at times, I felt like the ball was sticking, especially in the first half.”
The Rockets turned the ball over on 20.6 percent of their possessions against the Wizards, well up from their 12.5 percent turnover rate through the season’s first 10 games that saw them average 21.5 assists and 36.7 three-point attempts, but the good news is that the Rockets won their first game without VanVleet this season after starting last season 0-5 in games he missed.
“We love to have Fred out there,” Rockets guard Amen Thompson, who started in place of VanVleet said. “But games like this let us develop, learn how to play when he's off the court.”
VanVleet’s hamstring started to tighten during Sunday’s win in Detroit. Udoka said it started to loosen during the day Monday, but the Rockets point guard remains day-to-day.