Smith swishes 3-game streak
Jabari Smith Jr. clapped and clapped his hands, wanting the ball and the game in his hands again.
The Rockets had come all the way back to within their last chance. Smith had not made a 3 all night, but he never doubted he’d make his last one, having wanted those shots as part of a turnaround as stunning as it might have been unexpected.
With four seconds left and the Rockets down one, Jae’Sean Tate found Smith at the top of the circle. Smith took two dribbles to his right, and launched his shot over Naji Marshall, nailing it with .4 left, and lifting the Rockets past the Pelicans, 114-112, Friday at Toyota Center.
With that, the Rockets not only showed their improvement in going from blowout losses to the Pelicans to Friday’s comeback, but had their first threegame winning streak in five tries this season.
They got it with every starter scoring in double figures, led by Jalen Green’s 25 points with six assists, and Kevin Porter Jr.’s 20 points. They secured the win when the Pelicans inbounded with .4 left and Boban Marjanovic tipped the pass, with time running out before it could be caught.
The Rockets trailed by 15 with nine minutes left, their 19-0 first-half run a distant memory. Jonas Valanciunas had spent the third quarter pushing them around. Brandon Ingram, who finished with 31 points, was scoring easily.
The Rockets, however, answered. And they did it by improving in the ways the Pelicans had been beating them.
Alperen Sengun and Valanciunas returned, and Sengun answered Valanciunas’ muscle with energy. He helped trigger a run, with K.J. Martin getting on a roll. The Rockets rushed through a 17-4 run to move within one point heading to the final four minutes.
The Pelicans went back to Ingram, and he drew fouls on consecutive possessions, making all four free throws. The Pelicans led by six after the Rockets missed consecutive wideopen 3s. But when Porter stripped Ingram and pulled up for a 3, his fifth of the night, the Rockets were back within three with 2:13 left.
The Rockets got the stop they needed, but after Ingram swatted away a Green drive, he finished a break on the other end for a five-point Pelicans lead with 1:25 left.
Martin scored off an inbounds play, giving him nine fourth-quarter points, and the Pelicans’ Trey Murphy III missed a 3.
The Rockets called timeout and ran a play for a Green 3, but he had a foot over the line, leaving the Rockets a point behind.
They got a last chance when Ingram missed a pair of jumpers, with the Rockets calling time out with four seconds left.
Mano a mano
Sengun tried to flop on Valanciunas. It did not go well. But the problem was not just with the whistle he did not get.
He did not get a call and didn’t get it a few moments later when Ingram sent a forearm at him on a drive, or after that when Valanciunas shoved him out of the way like a big brother tormenting his young sibling. But none of that was the problem, even if the Rockets thought it was.
During a timeout, Valanciunas walked his arm into Sengun’s, with Sengun shoving it aside and the centers squaring off as if in a pre-fight weigh in.
For several minutes, they went at each other in the game, posting up and scoring on three consecutive possessions. But when Sengun badly missed a running hook, Valanciunas made a face as if he took a big whiff of a toxic waste dump.
He then went to work and dominated Sengun off the floor. After making 1 of 3 shots in the first quarter, Valanciunas made 8 of 12, scoring 20 points with 15 rebounds through three quarters.
Sengun answered a bit in the fourth quarter. But when Sengun and Smith spend their offseason with Rockets strength coach Willie Cruz, they can have highlights of Friday’s third quarter on a motivating loop.
They can also see the way Sengun bounced back to key the comeback in the fourth.
Turnover troubles
As badly as the Rockets started, trailing by 14 seven minutes into the game and stopping nothing, they gave themselves a chance to answer by removing their greatest shortcoming. That lasted only a quarter.
The Rockets did not have a turnover in the first quarter, so when they began getting stops, they turned things around.
They went through a 19-0 run when the Pelicans went as cold as they had been hot to start the game. The Pels made 6 of 9 shots in the 6½ minutes to start the game. They were scoreless for six minutes as the Rockets made their run.
The Rockets could not expect the Pelicans to keep on missing, not the way they started the game, and not considering that there was a good chance that Ingram and Valanciunas would check back in.
But they hurt themselves, taking away the chance to keep pace.
They followed the quarter without a turnover by committing eight in the second quarter, leading to 15 New Orleans points.
That allowed the Pelicans to take seven more shots and five more free throws in the second quarter. The Rockets misfired badly in the quarter, but the Pelicans missed all six of their 3s in the quarter after making their first six of the game, and still outscored the Rockets 28-15 after the Rockets took their largest lead.
Though there is nothing new about the Rockets’ turnover issues, rarely has it been more clearly damaging, and more obvious about what a difference it would make if they could take care of the ball.
The spice of life
Rockets coach Stephen Silas changed things up. Twice. He played Marjanovic in the second quarter, putting a bigger — much bigger — body on Valanciunas. And when he did, he did not do it with a zone defense, as he almost always does when Marjanovic plays before the closing minutes of a blowout.
He likely was just looking to give Sengun a few extra minutes on the bench, and did not want to ask Usman Garuba to match up with Valanciunas inside. Marjanovic played only two minutes before Sengun returned, playing 16 minutes in the first half.
But if playing Marjanovic and not playing a zone was not variety enough, he did not take a shot in his two minutes.