The Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder got the NBA season started off with an instant classic on Tuesday night, with the Thunder coming away with a dramatic 125-124 win in double overtime.
The Thunder were getting their feet wet after a long playoff run that culminated in an NBA Championship, while the Rockets were clearly still adjusting to life without Fred VanVleet and with Kevin Durant in the lineup. Alperen Sengun helped them bridge that gap with an absolutely monster game to keep the Rockets in it.
Sengun finished with an eye-popping stat line of 39 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists while shooting 12-for-24 from the field and 5-for-8 from 3-point range, setting records in the process.
With this performance, Sengun became the first center in NBA history to record at least 25 points, five rebounds and five assists while draining five 3-pointers in a season-opener, according to StatMuse. He is also the first player at any position to record at least 39 points, 11 boards and seven dimes in his team's first game of the season, according to Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press.
Sengun capped off his night with what he thought would be a game-winning layup in the final 15 seconds, but Shai Gilgeous-Alexander drilled a pair of game-winning free throws with 2.3 seconds to go.
Sengun has long been a stat sheet stuffer, but his production from beyond the arc was easily the most noteworthy part of his game on Tuesday night. Last season, he knocked down just 23.3% of his 3-pointers while taking just over one per game, so he appears to have gained a lot of confidence in that shot during the offseason. If he can continue to space the floor and knock down triples, it will be a major asset for this Rockets offense.
Sengun opening up his outside shot gives Ime Udoka plenty of options with his lineups. Last season in the playoffs, the Rockets deployed a double-big lineup with Sengun playing next to Steven Adams against a smaller Golden State Warriors squad. That will be harder to maintain in the regular season if the Rockets are playing both Adams and Amen Thompson with Sengun, but the Turkish big man adding a 3-point shot changes the spacing and allows it to work.
Both the Thunder and the Rockets protect to be contenders right near the top of the Western Conference, so they will be going back and forth all season long. If this season opener was any indication, this could be one of the best rivalries to watch in the NBA throughout the season.
