‘D’ in win may be defining moment

With the Rockets trailing by three points in the fourth quarter and the game clock ticking toward the five-minute mark, Hawks point guard Trae Young sized up Rockets second-year guard Jalen Green on the perimeter.

Green crouched into a low defensive stance as Young dribbled the ball between his legs, slow at first and then faster before he darted toward the elbow. Green shadowed his every step, forcing Young to retreat toward the sideline and launch an off-balance 3-pointer.

Young’s shot missed, and the Rockets grabbed the rebound. The ball found Green, who had leaked out in transition on the left wing, and who drained a game-tying 3pointer.

“I didn’t even see anything but the rim,” Green said. “I just knew that he was all the way back in transition and nobody else was with me so I just pulled up.”

Five minutes later, he used both hands to wave goodbye to the Hawks as they left the court following the Rockets’ 128-122 comeback win.

The Rockets are still at the point where individual improvements are more noticeable than the team’s progress as a whole — which is hardly linear — but Friday’s win was promising from multiple perspectives, including defensively.

Houston had season highs in rebounds (59), second-chance points (37), offensive rebounds (22) and free throws (34-of-41).

Letting Young and Dejounte Murray combine for 83 points while the Hawks shot 47.6 percent from the field might not scream good defense. But the Rockets held the Hawks to just two secondchance points, doubled them up on rebounds, gave up just 18 points in the fourth quarter and let only one other Atlanta player score in double figures (A.J. Griffin’s 11 points were all in the first half ).

“They’re All-Stars at the end of the day,” Green said of Young and Murray. “With those tough shots, I feel like you want to get the ball out of their hands and make the other people on the court score.”

In previous tight games the Rockets failed to close out, the issue always came down to an inability to make shots or get stops, sometimes both. On Friday, they executed on both fronts.

After shooting 55.8 percent from the field and making 10 3-pointers in the first half, Atlanta shot 38.5 percent in the second half with five 3-pointers. In the fourth quarter, the Hawks had more turnovers (five) than field goals (four).

“We got tired of them scoring on us,” Rockets coach Stephen Silas said. “And that’s a good thing to have when you have guys out there who are just like, ‘Uh uh, they’re not going to do it anymore.’ It says a lot, again, about our character.”

Rockets guard Garrison Mathews, who with under two minutes to go and Houston up by one point stole the ball and drew a crucial foul, said the difference in the team’s battle down the stretch was defense.

“Obviously we’re better than we were last year on defense,” Mathews said. “We got more rim protectors, we got better rebounds, all that stuff. Some more athletic guys, that’s super important when it comes to defense.”

Green’s late-game sequence in which he shut down Young and then nailed a clutch transition shot is exactly the type of play the Rockets want to sustain. Around the oneminute mark, Green fouled out of the game while guarding Young, and his effort didn’t go unnoticed by Silas.

“Trae obviously had 44 (points), but he shot 28 shots,” Silas said. “He was 13-for-28. We didn’t make him miss every time, but we fought. We tried, and for Jalen to foul out of this game means he was really trying hard on defense.”

Following his rookie season, Green stated he wanted to improve as a defender. He started by bulking up over the summer, making it harder for opponents to bully him with contact. Then he increased his vigilance in studying scouting reports and vowed to max out his effort level on the court.

“Especially on-ball, he’s done a good job of snaking through screens and picking whether going over or under, and getting to contests,” Silas said. “We’re having him play a little bit less off-ball, which is one of the things that he wanted to work on, and one of the things that he’s continuing to work on as far as being in the right spot, helping then recovering.

So having him on the ball a little bit more kind of plays a little bit more to his strengths as far as his quickness, his ability to use his athleticism and length against primary ball handlers.”

Young was just his latest challenge. This season, Green has defended players including Stephen Curry, CJ McCollum, Jalen Suggs and Ja Morant.

“Coach has been really trusting me to guard the best players every night,” Green said, unable to contain a smile. “That’s a new thing for me this year. Last year I didn’t even get to do any of that. I was probably one of the players that they would attack in the defense. Now they’re not really wanting to use me as a mismatch this year.”

When it comes to Green’s individual defense, the Rockets’ team defense or anything else, one game is difficult to project as a turning point for the season. When season-defining games occur, they are rarely identified in the moment.

“Usually they are revealed after the fact, right? So we’ll see from here,” Silas said. “As far as our fight back in this game and taking it on the chin for 83 for those two guys but still staying with the game, showing off the fight and character that we did — it could be one of those defining-type games.”