Alperen Sengun had to go against one of the best players in the NBA on Friday evening. Following his showdown with Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Houston Rockets rookie is starting to receive some heavy praise. But more on that in a second.

After winning seven straight games, the Rockets finally lost a game to the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night. They didn't go down without a fight and actually managed to lead for three quarters before letting go of the rope in the fourth. “Letting go of the rope” is actually a bad way of putting it, because Houston fought and clawed until the bitter end. Any other night and they may have escaped with a victory. This just happened to be a night in which they were playing the defending NBA champions.

And while the story of the game will go down as Giannis Antetokounmpo dominating a Rockets team that had absolutely no answer for him, the more relevant story for Houston is Alperen Sengun. For the time being, it doesn't matter that the Rockets don't have an answer for a player like that because this isn't a team trying to contend for the title. It does matter that their best player tonight finished with 15 points, 5 rebounds, and 1 steal on 6 of 8 shooting from the field while only playing 15 minutes. Sengun absolutely dominated the Bucks frontcourt and this was a game where Houston struggled to score in the paint and get dribble penetration all night.

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“When you talk about footwork, there's not many guys his size, or shoot anybody, that moves like he does,” said Jae'Sean Tate after the game. “I think he spun around like five times on one possession today. His ability to score around the rim but also pass the ball is something you just really can't teach. It's natural. He's going to continue to get better. He's going to be a problem.”

So the question is, why didn't he finish the game?

“I wanted to figure out a way to keep him in the game, but when they have Giannis at the five, it's really hard,” said Stephen Silas after the game. “He was having to guard Giannis. He had to switch to Middleton and then he went to Mathews. We weren't getting the same looks.”

For most of the game, Alperen Sengun was having a field day against the likes of DeMarcus Cousins and Bobby Portis. In the fourth quarter, the Bucks had Antetokounmpo guard Sengun and it changed the entire complexity of the game. Sengun could still find success against Antetokounmpo, but the thinking was probably that it would be less efficient and come at the cost of ball movement. As Silas said, the Rockets were also worried about Sengun getting caught on an island with someone who could take advantage of him off the dribble.

“It was different for sure,” said Silas on Antetokounmpo guarding Alperen Sengun. “That's a first team all-defensive, defensive player of the year guy that our 19-year-old rookie had to play against. And they made an adjustment for him to guard him. That's a sign of respect for [Sengun].”

Even with the worries about the Antetokounmpo matchup or the defense, it is still a bit puzzling that Sengun ended the game with only 15 minutes on a night like tonight. It's understandable that the Rockets are hesitant to go back to double-big lineups, but Sengun was the best big man on the floor tonight. There's no reason he shouldn't have finished the game. In a vacuum, benching Christian Wood in crunch time is certainly ballsy for a coach to do, but the flow of the game dictated that Sengun should have had those minutes over Wood.

Even Wood, someone who's playing time is directly impacted by this, believes Sengun should be playing more.

“[Alperen Sengun]'s been looking great coming off the bench,” said Wood. “I think he needs a little bit more minutes.”

Houston has been at this uncomfortable point with Sengun all season and the pressure has only gone up. We'll see if anything changes for him on the Rockets upcoming road trip.