After a razor-thin loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday, the Houston Rockets entered the Footprint Center to face the Phoenix Suns with the intention of getting their first road victory of the season against. They ultimately fell short, but like in a lot of their games as of late, they put up a pretty impressive fight and stayed in the game long past when they were supposed to. Pro athletes and coaches are too competitive to take pride in moral victories, but this is again a case where the Rockets have nothing to be embarrassed about. Houston competed hard, made the mistakes that young teams do, but couldn't beat a superior opponent. Let's look at some Rockets-Suns takeaways from Thursday night's game.

Houston Rockets takeaways from loss to Suns

1. Jalen Green keeps his head up

Anyone who has played basketball at a young age has had a coach tell them to “keep your head up” while handling the ball. This is, of course, to teach young players to stop looking down at the ball when dribbling, but it's also to keep them aware of what's happening on the court in front of them. By high school, most players are already instinctually keeping their heads up and it's a nonexistent problem for professional players. However, keeping your head up doesn't necessarily mean you're surveying the floor for open teammates.

Entering the NBA, the biggest question marks for Jalen Green as a basketball prospect were his playmaking ability and defense. Defensively, he tries hard, but he's skinny and makes a ton of mistakes. However, as a passer, Green is operating in the pick-and-roll at a much more advanced level than he was in the G League.

This was on full display against the Suns:

We've yet to see Green do some of the advanced cross-court passes to shooters that the very best can do, but it's encouraging that he has these basic interior passing reads down. He's not someone out there with blinders and strictly looking to score as the ball handler. He keeps his head up. We'll see if he can eventually develop a drive-and-kick game, but this is a a lot better than many expected from him in his rookie season.

2. Jae'Sean Tate is an incredible defensive player

It's kind of incredible to believe that Jae'Sean Tate wasn't in the NBA until last season when you watch him play defense. He's far and away Houston's best defensive player, and it wouldn't be surprising if the Rockets have received calls around the league about him. The P.J. Tucker comparisons fit Tate to a T, and he's actually a better ball handler than Tucker ever was. He still has a long way to go as a 3-point shooter in the NBA until he reaches the playoff utility Tucker did a few years ago (27.3% from 3-point range this season).

*Watch NBA games LIVE with fuboTV (click for free trial)*

For Houston, he's such a good defender that they'll live with the floor-spacing concerns to get plays like this:

And this:

RECOMMENDED (Article Continues Below)
Suns' Grayson Allen, Timberwolves, Target Center

Alex House ·

Lakers Kobe Bryant and Suns Goran Dragic amid 2010 NBA Playoffs clash

Jay Postrado ·

Suns' Grayson Allen in middle shooting a basketball. Place a question mark on his left and his right.

Joey Mistretta ·

3. Why do the Rockets keep blowing leads?

This is the fourth game in two weeks the Rockets had a halftime lead and lost the game. It seems like they catch teams off guard with their youth exuberance, but let their foot off the gas offensively in the second half. Over the past five games, the Rockets are scoring 101.1 points per 100 possessions in the first half of games, but only 93.5 in the second half. Digging deeper in the numbers to understand why, their turnover rate spikes in the second half.

And, of course, that aligns with what we've been seeing from Houston:

The Rockets are turnover machines and until that (ignore the pun) turns over, they'll keep blowing leads against these veteran playoff teams. Part of it is just having a lot of young players who make mistakes, while the other part seems self-inflicted.

“When we are playing a little bit slower and getting to isolation-type stuff, we tend to turn the ball over a little bit more,” said Stephen Silas after the game. “We just need to do better.”