Last night in Texas basketball was not a good night

The last night in Texas basketball blog will recap each game played by the Texas NBA teams throughout this NBA season. The Spurs have Wemby, Luka is still doing Luka Magic in Dallas, and the Rockets have hope for the first time since James Harden left town. It’s time for Texas to rule the NBA again.

While it appears that Texas was ready to rule before the 2023-2024 season began, it appears that the San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets were not a part of that memo. The Rockets fell to the Golden State Warriors and the Spurs got trounced by the Los Angeles Clippers Sunday. Last night in Texas basketball was not a good night.

The Rockets faced off against a familiar foe in the Warriors for their home opener in the Toyota Center. Through the first quarter two things stood out to me: the Warriors made a few more threes and the Rockets couldn’t make many long jump shots. The Rockets were only down two after the first quarter and seemed to be very much in the game, and even had the lead at some points in the third and fourth quarters.

The Warriors made double the amount of threes than the Rockets with 18, and that proved to be killer for Houston. Jalen Green appeared to be the only somewhat bright spot for the team, other than Alperen Sengun who continued his consistency with a 19/5/7 stat line.

If the Rockets literally make just a couple of their wide open threes then this game has a completely different result. Ime Udoka definitely has the defense working a bit more than last year’s team, but it appears that they’re still getting used to all the new pieces on the team. Remember, Udoka’s Boston team took until the new year to really hit a groove with the system, so there’s still hope for these Houston Rockets.

Houston Rockets Top Performer Last Night

Once again it was Alperen Sengun with his model of consistency. I expect he’ll be winning this award a whole lot throughout the next 79 games.

Over to the San Antonio Spurs game where they faced off against the full strength Clippers team. Both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George played, and they also happened to have the good version of Russell Westbrook last night. That proved to be too much for the young Spurs team as they lost by forty (40) points in L.A.

This was a tough game to watch from a Spurs perspective. Victor Wembanyama played 26 minutes, but it never even seemed like he was on the court. I think this is going to happen a number of times throughout the season as he and the Spurs continue to learn what his role is and how to use him against good teams.

The Spurs shot 37.5% from the field which is always a recipe for disaster when playing a NBA game. They also had 25 turnovers which, uh, is not good. There’s not much else I can write about this game.

San Antonio Spurs Top Performer Last Night

I can’t believe I’m going to choose a player that was a -30 +/-, but Devin Vassell once again wins the top performer last night because he was the Spurs leading scorer with… 14 points. Not great!

We’ll be back to talk Last night in Texas basketball tomorrow with a recap of the Dallas Mavericks and Memphis Grizzlies game.

Last night in Texas basketball was not a good night.