The Rockets lost 128-133 to the Pelicans following a stellar 25-point comeback from New Orleans to force overtime and eventually steal the win. They choked the 25-point lead in the second half of the game, wherein they were outscored 52-74 to force overtime, and ended up losing down the stretch.
Following the game, Ime Udoka spoke to the media and addressed what caused this loss in New Orleans. He called out the Rockets’ young stars for being intimidated by the big moments in the game.
“All of the above on both ends. After holding them to 45 in the first half, to give up 74 in the second half, you know, 38-point and a 36-point quarter, obviously, that’s an embarrassing defensive effort there.”
“Offensively, we did not improve; we had 11 turnovers in the first half and nine in the second half. But guys looked scared or intimidated or whatever, out of double-teams to make plays. Teams are going to do that with Kevin and Alperen, ‘make others beat us [mentality],’ and we couldn’t execute tonight,” said Ime Udoka.
Udoka seems to believe that the other young stars failed to produce for the Rockets whenever a double team was on Durant or Sengun, which resulted in them getting the open look. Kevin Durant and Alperen Sengun spoke to the media in the locker room and resonated with a similar analysis of the game.
“Third quarter, we didn’t play with enough energy or sense of urgency. They got whatever they wanted. We weren’t playing together, we weren’t swinging the ball. We just relaxed too much; they hit us in the mouth.”
It’s the law of averages; they were missing shots in the first half, shot like 34%, in the second half, they shot like 80%. We just relaxed, got too cool thinking we’re there already. We got to play 48 minutes,” said Durant in his honest assessment of where the Rockets faultered in the second half to lose the 25-point lead they had at one point.
“We played softer, they played hard. Second half, they played aggressively, and we didn’t. I mean, we just lost focus. We thought we already won, and we hadn’t. They played aggressively, and we couldn’t match their aggressiveness in the second half, so we lost,” Sengun said during his media scrum.
This game counts as their fourth consecutive loss on the road as they fell to 16-8 for the season and became the fifth seed in the West.
Kevin Durant finished the game with 32 points, seven rebounds, two assists, and four blocks while shooting 80.0% from the field (12-of-15) and 66.7% from the three-point line (4-of-6).
Meanwhile, Alperen Sengun finished the game with 28 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists, two steals, and two blocks while shooting 42.3% from the floor (11-of-26).
But Ime Udoka emphasized that these two All-Stars will now always be on the opposing team’s scouting reports. That does not mean the rest of the team gets too reliant on them to produce and gets intimidated when it comes to their own production.
The Rockets are considered a promising championship contender this season. If they want to cement themselves as that over the season, they will need to improve their record on the road.
Facing a hostile audience is also an important lesson for a young team like the Rockets. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how they bounce back from this slip in their form.
They are set to face the Nuggets in Denver once again on Saturday. They will hope to end this losing streak on the road in the next game.