Green heats up, finds daylight
Third-year guard breaks out of shooting slump in a big way after being benched at Golden State
Before Jalen Green soared over Grizzlies forward Jaren Jackson Jr. for a momentum-juicing dunk to conclude the third quarter of Wednesday’s Rockets win, Green was in another critical one-on-one situation tens of thousands of miles above the ground.
Green was benched for the fourth quarter of the Rockets’ failed comeback in a loss to the Warriors on Monday night. On the team’s plane ride home from San Francisco the next day, Rockets coach Ime Udoka held an individual film session with Green and emphasized missed opportunities. The message hit home. Green bounced back with a resplendent second half against the Grizzlies and scored a season-best 34 points, a performance that ended with teammate Alperen Şengün pouring water down the back of Green’s shirt to cool him off.
“Really, it was just taking what the defense was giving me,” Green said after the 111-91 win. “My guys were setting me up. As soon as I saw daylight, I just took whatever I had.”
Daylight dawned again after a dark shooting period. Green entered Wednesday making 27.8% of his shots (15-of-54) over his last four games, including 6-of-24 on 3s. Against Memphis, he missed two of his first three shots and seven of his first 10 in the first half.
At one point early in the second half, Green missed a lob opportunity and then gave up a basket in transition on defense. He hung his head.
Rockets point guard Fred VanVleet spotted it and pulled Green aside for what he described as a “one-sided conversation.”
“I think that there’s a lot of ways that (you can) impact the game and energy is very contagious, good and bad,” VanVleet said. “Our energy was low and I just thought that he could pick his energy up a little bit. And he did that and some, and carried us to the win tonight.”
Green said he appreciates having veteran players around this season to hold him accountable.
“I don’t ever want to do that to my teammates, especially everyone out there playing hard, so hearing that made me just step up into another gear,” Green said. “The last two years, it would’ve just been that. Nobody would’ve said nothing and we would’ve just kept playing through that bad energy. So the changeup this year is good, having vets to talk to us.”
In their cross-country film session, Udoka told Green to hunt for his shots and to not be discouraged by early misses. He was encouraged by how the third-year guard responded on Wednesday, particularly later in the game as the Grizzlies packed the paint to prevent him from getting downhill.
“I showed him some shots that he may have passed up when they’re going under sometimes, and tonight he took all those,” Udoka said. “And so make or miss, which he missed some early, he stayed aggressive and kept shooting and that’s what Memphis gives up. And he took advantage of that.”
Although a few of Green’s early shots rimmed in and out, they were on line enough that Green felt his jump shot was there. When he hit his first 3-pointer of the game, a stepback in the third quarter to bring the Rockets within one point, he knew what was about to happen.
“Once I saw that go in, the rim got big after that,” Green said.
No bigger than when he posterized the 6-foot-11 Jackson at the end of the quarter, a slam that drew such an outsized reaction from the Rockets bench that Jabari Smith Jr. lost his balance and Şengün was given a technical foul.
“It was like a momentum shift. It was just energy,” Smith said. “That kind of woke us up a bit, you know? And if you saw my reaction, I fell. We ended up getting the tech but I was like — I was excited.”
The Rockets continued to widen their lead to double figures in the fourth quarter. After a few clutch defensive plays led to buckets on the other end, Green hammered another nail in the Grizzlies’ coffin.
Tari Eason blocked Desmond Bane’s 3-point attempt and put the Rockets on the hunt again. Green dribbled around a Şengün screen to an open spot on the left wing and nailed a fadeaway 3-pointer over center Bismack Biyombo, prompting another Grizzlies timeout. Green roared, “Let’s go!” to the fans behind the basket before heading to the Rockets’ huddle.
Udoka said he thought Green’s shot selection was “pretty good,” and praised VanVleet’s ability to run the offense in ways that exploited Green’s strengths.
In addition to helping Green mentally get back into games, VanVleet said he is gradually developing more chemistry with his starting backcourt mate.
“I think we just need to do a better job of getting him more involved and finding ways for him to be more successful, more impactful for us,” VanVleet said. “You know, we’ve been just focused on winning as a group, but obviously we need that scoring punch out of the backcourt from him. So I thought tonight was a good opportunity to let him flow, let him see the floor, let him get the ball. (He took) 26 shots which is good, 50 percent. So he was huge for us, especially in the second half, so it was good to see him play free and play easy tonight.”
Not everything is as easy as Green sometimes makes it look, of course. He said he often receives what would appear to be contradictory pieces of advice from his coaches: Be patient, but stay aggressive.
“It’s a balance,” Green said. “I’m still learning and trying to figure it out. I don’t want to overforce, and I don’t want to not force as much as I can. I know that I draw a lot of attention out there, so I’m trying to figure it out still.”