In the waning moments of a fourth-quarter collapse Friday against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Houston Rockets were confronted with the option of who gets the ball with the game in the balance.
Throughout this season, the Rockets have been effective in spreading the wealth offensively, with Jalen Green, Alperen Sengun and Fred VanVleet all getting time as the linchpin on that end of the court. And after giving up a 16-point lead they held with just less than five minutes to play, the Rockets opted to run their final play through Sengun after he had tallied a season-high 38 points on 64 percent (16 of 25) shooting from the field.
Sengun failed to get off a shot, and his hurried pass to VanVleet resulted in a perimeter miss and a 113-112 defeat. That ended the Rockets’ four-game winning streak and started a five-game homestand that will continue Sunday night against the Miami Heat.
With Green, Sengun and VanVleet averaging between 19.3 and 15.3 points and 16.3 and 14.1 shots per game, the Rockets routinely have attempted to exploit their offensive balance. Sengun mostly had his way against the Timberwolves, warranting his opportunity with the game on the line. It was his turn to have the ball in his hands at game’s end and, moving forward, Houston will continue to rely on its multitude of scoring options in late-game situations, largely leaning on the hot hand.
“It’s really matchup-based and who has it going at that time,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “We know some things that we like for certain guys. Alperen had been getting loose from the high-post area where they couldn’t double him as much. The one time he had it late, they got it out of his hands and we got him in the post.
“We have packages for all the guys based on who’s going.”
The Heat, meanwhile, were undermined by a nine-point, third-quarter deficit that proved insurmountable in their 120-110 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday. Miami and Atlanta logged a first half that produced nine lead changes.
Tyler Herro (28 points, 10 assists) and Bam Adebayo (17 points, 10 rebounds) posted double-doubles for the Heat, who were without forward Jimmy Butler for a fourth consecutive game with what the team categorized as “return to competition reconditioning.” Butler hasn’t played since Dec. 20, when he appeared to injure his ankle in the first quarter of a loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. He then was ruled out of the game because of illness.
Without Butler, the Heat have challenges with late-game offensive options. Herro, who is averaging 23.9 points per game, and Adebayo (16.3) are more than capable of steering the ship down the stretch of contested games, but Butler (18.5) provides Miami with an additional option both as a primary scorer and facilitator. His absence influences how the Heat execute offensively when games are close and late.
“We just came up empty,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “There weren’t bad looks. It wasn’t like there wasn’t intention. I’m OK with the intention of what we were trying to do offensively, but we just couldn’t get the ball to go.
“Everything else was fine and appropriate. We just couldn’t overcome it.”
–Field Level Media
