On Monday night, the Houston Rockets fell to 16-7 with a tough road loss to the Denver Nuggets. A questionable last-second shot attempt aside, Alperen Sengun was mostly excellent in this one, scoring 33 points to go along with ten rebounds and ten assists in the loss.
After the game, the Rockets put the attention on the officiating crew, with Ime Udoka blasting them as being “star struck” and giving Denver what he thought were unfair calls down the stretch of the game, per ESPN.
Sengun also spoke on the perceived disparity between the calls he gets and the calls that Denver star Nikola Jokic received throughout the game.
“I don't know. He got three time MVP. I'm sure he wasn't getting the calls when he was my age too. Eventually, I'll get there. He did work all the way this to come to here,” said Sengun, per Alperen Sengun Stats on X, formerly Twitter.
It should be noted that Jokic did foul out of this game, so it's not as if the referees were being particularly gracious to him, either.
Overall, this was a tough loss for the Rockets, especially considering that they were playing a very shorthanded Denver team, with Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun both already out of the lineup, and Peyton Watson exiting during the game due to an injury.
However, the Rockets are still in good position in the West, and have certainly benefited from playing fewer games than most teams in the NBA up to this point in the season. It will be interesting to see how Houston responds once the schedule begins to ratchet up.
In any case, the Rockets will next take the floor on Thursday evening for a road game against the New Orleans Pelicans, and then they'll be right back in Denver again on Saturday.
