Silas hails ‘fight’ in win over Suns

SAN FRANCISCO — For the Rockets, this week's four-game West Coast road trip against the two top teams in the Western Conference and the defending NBA champions is as good a litmus test as any stretch so far this season.

And so when the Rockets rebounded from two blowout losses to the Nuggets and engineered a comeback from down 16 points to beat the Suns on Friday night in Phoenix, Houston's third win in five games and biggest of the season, coach Stephen Silas'

message to his young team was that the result mattered less than how they achieved it.

“We showed a lot of character. We showed a lot of fight like we have all season and it paid off,” Silas said before the Rockets' game against the Warriors on Saturday. “And if we play that way, then we'll have more success — not even in wins and losses, just how we feel about ourselves after games. So I don't want to make it to where we played a good game because we won. We played a good game, because we did the right things. If (Devin) Booker had made that shot at the end of the game that wouldn't have taken away from all the things that we did.”

Booker missed a 16-foot jump shot at the buzzer, but two Suns offensive rebounds earlier had missed another shot with 9.2 seconds remaining. His first miss was the result of lockdown defense by Rockets guard Jalen Green, who similarly came up with a clutch defensive possession against Trae Young in the Rockets' win over the Hawks a week earlier.

“He was aggressive, and that's important,” Silas said of Green. “I think the thing that stood out to me most was the fact that he wanted to guard Booker in the second half, and that's a big step. So he was chasing him and pressuring him and making it as hard as you can make it on Booker. Booker still had 41 (points) and whatnot. But the defensive effort that Jalen gave in that game in particular, is a big step for him.”

After he shot 2-for-12 in the first half, Green also scored 20 points in the third quarter to spark the Rockets' rally. He finished with 30 points against Phoenix after scoring a total of 33 points the two games prior. Green has always been an explosive offensive player, but his ability to adjust midgame and attempt a career high 16 free throws was a sign, Silas said, of how the secondyear guard is becoming more multi-dimensional.

“For him to score 20 in the third last night and get to the free throw line 16 times during the game shows some maturity in his game,” Silas said. “Not necessarily, you know, one-on-one iso jumpers. It's getting downhill. It's forcing the second defender to come and making the play. So yeah, he's maturing as a scorer and we needed it last night.”