For the first time all season, the Houston Rockets are on a winning streak. It's the bare minimum what you would qualify as a streak, but it's still a streak. We don't need to go overboard with praise for a team with three wins in late November, but Houston's done some notable things as a team that's carried over into Saturday night in their win against the Charlotte Hornets. Let's dig into some of them.
1. Christian Wood at center
We're 19 games into the season, but it looks like the Rockets have finally realized that Christian Wood is a center in the NBA. For some reason, Kelly Olynyk's success playing alongside Wood last season persuaded the Rockets enough to want to slide Wood to power forward and acquire Daniel Theis to play center. However, those lineups have been as terrible as one might expect. Offensively, they've taken away Wood's screen and dive ability and made him too much of a catch and shoot guy. Defensively, Wood isn't mobile enough to guard a lot of fours in the NBA.
However, since Wednesday night against the Bulls, the Rockets have decided to scrap their preseason plans of playing traditional big man basketball and have opted to go small. This means Jae'Sean Tate slides down to his natural position at power forward and Eric Gordon can slide into the starting unit during Jalen Green's absence. Wood was incredible on Saturday, tallying 33 points, 16 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 blocks on 78.3% true shooting.
— Salman Ali (@SalmanAliNBA) November 28, 2021
“Him rolling to the paint is one of the advantages that he'll have when he's out there at the five,” said Silas on Wood after the game. “He'll catch in the paint more because he's rolling harder.”
2. Starting lineup adds floor spacing
As one might expect, the Rockets starting lineup looks operates much better with proper floor spacing. Not only does it allow Eric Gordon to be with the starters, but it spaces the floor around Eric Gordon, Kevin Porter Jr. and Christian Wood. Previously, the Rockets were one of the worst first and third quarter teams in basketball and allot of that was due to the starting lineups being bad. The pairing of Daniel Theis and Wood specifically, was horrendous. The Rockets were forfeiting 21.5 points per 100 possessions when those two shared the floor together. Houston has abandoned the double center lineups in favor of Jae'Sean Tate at power forward and it's worked about as well as you'd expect.
“I don't know if you noticed, but we have a lot better spacing out there,” said Wood on Saturday after the game. “With me going to the basket, I think I'm one of the best pick and roll big men in the league. They have to help and if they don't, it's a dunk. And if they do, it's a three.”
3. Kevin Porter Jr. unleashed
The saying “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” could not be more applicable to Kevin Porter Jr.'s return to the starting lineup for Houston. He's just been a very effective facilitator since returning and it's partly because he's gotten the ball back in his hands full time. Jalen Green has missed 7 out of the last 8 quarters of Rockets basketball due to a hamstring injury and Porter Jr. has been the main beneficiary. He's racked up 21 assists in two games and has showed glimpses of the floor general Houston's front office believes he can be.
“I think you saw him controlling the game, finding [Christian] Wood on the rolls, finding Eric [Gordon] on the flares, going downhill, and getting to the free throw line at the end,” said Silas. “That's big time stuff for a 21-year-old trying to learn the point guard position. 12 assists were huge and four turnovers were equally huge for him.”
4. Garrison Mathews is the coolest story of the season
The Rockets threw a curveball at everyone and started recently called up forward Garrison Mathews at small forward in Jalen Green's absence. They toyed with this idea by starting him in the second half against the Chicago Bulls, but it was hard to see them actually taking this step until tonight. Mathews has got to be the coolest story the Rockets have going for them in the early season considering he was just in the G League three weeks ago. He came in tonight and contributed huge in 37 minutes, pouring in 20 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field and 5-of-10 shooting from beyond the arc.
— Salman Ali (@SalmanAliNBA) November 28, 2021
“He's playing spectacular man,” said Eric Gordon of Mathews after the game. “He's been playing great. He came in and does what he does best. And we accept it. We want him to knock down those shots and take every three.”
Silas said he will be adjusting his starting lineups on a game-by-game basis from now on so it remains to be seen how much Mathews figures into Houston's future plans. His confidence level can give Houston fans hope that the front office found a pretty nice player off the scrap heap.
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