NBA

Houston Rockets Weekly Wraps: Week 1

Houston Rockets Weekly Wraps: Week 1 where we break down each Rockets game from the previous week.

Published

October 29, 2024

Tre Mann tapped into his inner Allen Iverson against Houston.

What’s up fellas and felletes, and welcome to the first edition of Weekly Wraps, where I — Trenton Whiting — break down my interpretation of the prior week for the Houston Rockets. Thanks so much for being here, and always feel free to reach out to me on X @trentonwhiting if you want to keep the conversation going. Here’s the first iteration of Houston Rockets Weekly Wraps: Week 1.

About Me

Before I break down the start of the 2024–25 season for the Houston Rockets, here’s just a little about myself. I am a TV News Reporter in Victoria, TX; a little over 2 hours away from the H itself.

Love, Love, Love Houston ❤ I loved going to school there, too (Go Coogs).

Before this job I worked at a newspaper in a small town called Columbus in between H-Town and ATX. I started as the sports reporter where I won first place for Sports coverage and third place in Sports Photography in the Texas Press Awards Better Newspaper Contest. Later, I got promoted to the managing editor and won the overall championship in that contest this year (think of it like a track meet with several events).

That might sound boring to you, but those were major highlights to me in my career that I definitely value.

I was born in Houston, raised 30 minutes out in Pearland, and followed every Houston sports team since I became a fan of sports in 2012 — but especially the Rockets. I watched basically every game in the rebuild (ugh) but that’s just how locked in I am on this team.

I’m excited for this season, and excited to get started with y’all — so let’s not waste any more time! Let’s break down the first week of Rockets’ hoops ~!

These are the Breaks

Okay to start — not exactly what they were looking when they drew up the start of the season. A 1–2 record looks ugly, but there were definitely some encouraging signs along with the ugLy. This one will be a little more general, but in future editions I’ll lock in a little more of the tape, so bear with me!

On a Positive note

Let’s start with some positives: this team can create a lead. Building up double digit leads in each of their first two games including a dominant win against the Grizzlies at home. Obviously, they couldn’t hold the lead in a disappointing loss to the Hornets to start the season — but we’re being positive right now — let’s be negative later.

Another positive: the top players understand the stakes. Specifically, cornerstones Jalen Green and Alperen Sengun. This is the most critical season Houston has had in the 2020s, and definitely the one with the most potential. JG is a top 20 scorer through three games at 26.3 per game, and Alpi is averaging a double-double so far in the young season.

They seem to understand that this season means something — and that they need to step up into their roles as franchise cornerstones. Despite some missed bunnies (Alpi) and some pretty inefficient shooting (JG), the boys have come to play this year.

Jalen has seemed a lot more patient this season. Also, he’s been taking more open shots so far — and doing more to earn those open shots. His handle has served him well, he gets to the rim nicely, and while maybe the volume is a little too high, he’s been putting up a lot of open threes. And that pocket pass to Alpi is still money.

Speaking of Alpi, you can tell that he’s gotten stronger. That Harden-esque driving rip-through move he’s been using is proof of the offseason work. He’s been able to overpower opponents for fouls, buckets and rebounds. He also continues to prove why he plays the ideal connector piece for this team.

When the O starts with him, players are more open and take better shots, even if he’s not making a direct assist. Houston did a solid job of swinging to the open man during the preseason, and Sengun was a large reason why the defense was off-balance so often.

Of course the duo hasn’t been perfect, and their teammates have had mixed results as well. But I got one more positive before I get negative.

Maybe just a few more: Amen Thompson and Tari Eason. By far the most consistent role players (not that anyone has been very consistent so far), and definitely the team’s top defenders.

I love Amen’s drives to the bucket. If he’s not the best athlete it’s only because there are several athletic anomalies on the team. He looks like he understands his place on the offense right now, and it helped him have a few solid games before somewhat of a stinker against the Spurs.

Tari has been a pest, which is one letter away from his nickname: Peso. The ‘O’ will be more consistent for Tari eventually, but it’s nice to know for now — until the shot starts falling — he can still be who he’s always been, a board beast and a clamps specialist.

Jalen has also been nice at point-of-attack defense this year, and Alpi has been a willing and capable helper. I’m expecting another strong defensive year from this squad, which makes sense with Ime Udoka as head coach over a team packed to the brim with athletes and defenders.

Feels good to be positive doesn’t it? Well go ahead and wrap that up because I’m sure two losses in three tries has everyone feeling a little down.

Womp Womp

So let’s get negative now, because obviously losing more games than they win is not the goal for the Rockets for this season.

We talked about ugly earlier? Well it didn’t take long for it to get real ugly since the first game against the Hornets showed evidence of how things could go wrong for the Rockets this year. Same with the game against the San Antonio Spurs — one in which they never led after halfway through the first quarter.

Against Charlotte, they allowed the other team’s best player (Lamelo Ball) to beat them. Usually that’s the one person who’s not allowed to beat you if everything’s going to plan. Dillon Brooks has often been tasked to guard the other team’s best offensive player.

I don’t know how I feel about that anymore. I fell off the scent with DB near the end of last season. It felt like a pattern of a team’s best player going off and being a main reason for a win — I think Dillon having that responsibility isn’t always the best move, and shouldn’t be the default.

Lamelo did get some help from some of his others like Tre Mann — who went on a burner, mind you — and the Rockets coughed up an 18-point lead in a tough fashion with probably the lowest point of the game being a bad turnover by Alpi in the last meaningful possession.

Alpi wasn’t alone with a game-ending giveaway though, as Jalen and Cam Whitmore connected for a clutch turnover on a fastbreak that could have potentially ended in a game-tying dunk late against the Spurs. Cam got a hand on the pass, but it was just a bit high and outside. Jalen’s pass sails a little behind Cam before deflecting off Whitmore’s mitt and cruising out of bounds.

Pretty tough late game moments.

But no worries, because those tough moments weren’t the reasons they lost in those games.

The real reasons happened much earlier due to the shoddy rebounding and inefficient shooting, especially against the Hornets. Fred Van Vleet missed 9 threes in one of the most yikes games he’s had as a Rocket (Happy Halloween!).

Jabari Smith Jr. and Dillon the Villain combined for seven points in a game that absolutely just got away from the team.

The San Antonio game was just a mix of Wemby doing unprecedented stuff and -again- pretty bad rebounding. In those two losses, Houston has been outrebounded by a combined 28 boards. Compare that with their win against Memphis where they snared 21 more boards than the Griz.

Big Picture

The only takeaways I take from this early in the season, is who looks in shape or not. I would say that Houston’s best players seem to be ready to compete. It’s so hard to predict how a team will project for the rest of the season after just a few games.

Which of the positives or negatives will become trends for the rest of the season? It will definitely be a mix of both, but we won’t know what this team really is until we get some more tape.

On that note, the tape is telling me that Jalen Green is definitely this week’s-

Player of The Week

And deservedly so. Jalen has been getting his buckets exactly how I was hoping he would this season. Controlled drives to the rim, shots off of screens and open threes.

28. 22. 29. All team-high point totals respectively. Now I’m not going to lie and say that these points came easy or anything. Jalen splashed 5 threes against Charlotte — but he also missed 10 after settling for the deep shot in the middle periods.

Jalen is best when his offense is varied.

I love to see him curl off an Alpi screen into a wide open middie. I hope that shot is legit because I bet they could create that any time they want. If the high volume shooting continues, he just needs to make one or two more deep shots per game to make the numbers look prettier.

I don’t know if he will, but I do know that he will let that thing fly. His efficiency hasn’t been great, but he’s putting the ball in the basket which is exactly what they need.

And if he can keep scoring at a high clip — maybe he can prove that he’s the alpha scorer supernova that teams need to compete seriously in the current landscape.

Gotta have that. For real. And this is Jalen’s year to prove that he can be that, or the Rockets will be looking into finding someone who can.

But what if instead of playing survivor and forcing Rafael Stone to pick who stays on the island — Jalen plays well and complements Alpi’s all-star bid with his own run? The Rockets could be a spooky team.

Honorable mention to the Turkish big man this week. I’m sure Alpi and Jalen will have more than their fair share of team Player of The Week awards this season. That just means the plan came together exactly how they wanted it.

Hopefully all the preseason hype wasn’t a trick, and that the postseason will be a sweet treat for a team that just locked in their top young players.

Next Week

Good couple of rivalry games to take a look at this upcoming week, including a lil Texas two-step road trip. They’ll get a rematch against the Spurs before measuring up against an allegedly revived Klay Thompson on a team led by my prediction for MVP this season. Houston finishes the week with a visit from the other splash brother and perennial Rockets killer Steph Curry along with his Warriors.

So it’ll be a tough week, but I’m still expecting some good performances. I think I’ve wrapped last week up nicely, so before we get to San Antonio, here are some of my-