Rocket Picking Pelicans 126-112 – The Dream Shake

The Rockets have played their winning streak on five games, climbing back to .500. Their leading defense of the NBA during the win streak brought in more points than usual, but that’s largely due to about eight minutes of the fourth quarter as drop time.

We’re starting to see how the Rockets can come together with a defensive approach and a versatile attack, with nearly every player able to score and contribute to a group effort to put points on the board. Christian Wood may be the focus, but tonight eleven Rockets and five players scored thirteen or more. (Thirteen isn’t a special number, it’s just the lowest total of the two-digit scorers.)

Imagine how likely that would have been before the start of this season?

This game ran strangely per quarter. Let’s take a quick look.

First quarter

Wall, Oladipo, Tate, Tucker and Wood’s current Rockets alignment just doesn’t work. The combination of Tate and Tucker at the start of a game, combined with Rockets’ reluctance to attack inside, or perform anything other than ISO, or shoot (and bricklaying) quick threes is a problem. So far it has sparked early leads for opponents, running away from the Rockets misses and exposing their worst aspect: transition defense.

Tonight, the janky launch attack led to 3-12 3pt shooting, and for long stretches, New Orleans led by about ten points. Then the bank came in. From then on, the 6’5 ”Assault team began to cool the Pelicans, and the Rockets followed at the end of the period eight times behind.

Second quarter

The Bench Brigade stopped the pressure early and Rockets start-ups got furious over the course of the quarter. Shots ringing in the first went in and the Rockets quickly attacked Pelican misses due to good defense. The quarter started with a drop of eight missiles. It ended 48 points later with the Rockets on 18. This is a 26-point swing for those who score at home. The Pelicans were largely shut down, their 35 pt burst in the first quarter muffled to 22 in the second frame.

The Pelicans just seemed to stop with about four minutes to go. A symbolic moment of this is that, with 3.8 seconds remaining, the Rockets are allowed to roll the basektball, without the clock starting with a pickup, all the way from the Rockets baseline to the Pelican basket’s three-point line. To which Victor Oladipo calmly splashed a three.

Third quarter

Stan Van Gundy must have had a Van Gundian tirade at half-time, as the listless Pelicans came to it in the third. They made everything and Zion Williamson (PF Shaq) was unstoppable. He shot or got his misses, and the Rockets couldn’t stop him. The fact that he ended the night with just 19 tries is silly. He’s the only player no one has an answer for, not the Rockets, with Wood being overwhelmed and Cousins ​​making the mistakes. At one point in the third, Rockets’ lead, which had risen to over twenty, had dropped to eight. A series of silly mistakes by Jaxon Hayes, including a dubious Flagrant 1 on Cousins ​​shooting a three-pointer, kept New Orleans at bay until Eric Gordon and Jae’Sean Tate were able to widen the lead to fifteen.

Fourth quarter

The lead wouldn’t shrink much in the fourth period, and the game hit unofficial trash time early on, as it became clear that Zion couldn’t overcome Rockets’ combined scoring output. The Rockets played their entire bench for at least five minutes each when Rodion Kurucs, Mason Jones and Ben McLemore appeared briefly.

Conclusion

There isn’t much more to say, other than that the Rockets bank (perhaps without the ruthless David Nwaba with an ankle injury for a while) simply destroys opponents with defense and energy. They also have a clever move with Eric Gordon, where he comes down a little late and takes a handoff around the three-point line, with the other Rocket serving as the screener for Gordon to take a long, but wide-open, three-point shot. .

The next game, to potentially set a winning record, is against the Thunder on Monday.