Splashed Down: Curry’s Late 3-Point Barrage Spoils Houston’s Chances, Rockets Fall to Warriors, 106-95
Green Light. High Leverage. Upcoming Storm.
Houston returned home for the first game of the season at Toyota Center, eagerly seeking their first win as they hosted Golden State on Sunday night. The Rockets plans for victory were spoiled by Stephen Curry and the Warriors, who pulled away late in the fourth quarter, en route to dealing Houston a 106-95 loss. Curry scored 24 points, and Klay Thompson added 19, to lead the Golden State’s shooting barrage. Jalen Green had a second consecutive solid outing, scoring 21 points on 8-for-20 shooting, while grabbing 9 renbounds. Green clearly has the “green light” to be as aggressive as possible this season. He’s improving, but still needs to up his aggression level in the coming games. Alperen Sengun continues to be Houston’s best player to start the season. Sengun finished with 19 points, 5 boards, and 7 assists on the night. Jabari Smith Jr. scored 14 points and grabbed 8 boards in his best showing of the the year so far. Fred VanVleet struggled mightily with his shot, connecting on only 2 of his 13 shot attempts for 8 points.
The defeat is Houston’s third consecutive loss to start the season. Despite coming out on the losing end, the Rockets fought hard to the end with a tough, veteran Warriors’ squad. During the Stephen Silas era, this team would’ve folded and settled for a blowout on a night like Sunday. This Houston squad is more resilient, despite remaining winless, than last season. In high leverage games like this last season, the Rockets usually got blown out. This season, Houston has shown flashes of their overall potential as a unit. However, the squad has one of the toughest schedules to start the season in the entire league. If they can manage to weather this upcoming storm, and not lose too many games, Houston can be proud of their start despite their record.
The Rockets now will have two days off before hosting the Charlotte Hornets in the second leg of this seven-game home-stand. After that, the schedule gets incredibly difficult, as Houston faces mostly teams that made the playoffs last season over the next month. The squad needs to be prepared to swat an inexperienced Hornets club out of the building, otherwise the Rockets could be in danger of facing a lengthy losing streak to start the year.