Houston Rockets NBA Play-In Tournament Push & Why Ime Udoka Deserves Coach Of The Year Consideration

Houston Rockets NBA Play-In Tournament Push & Why Ime Udoka Deserves Coach Of The Year Consideration

On today’s show how the Houston Rockets are seven and one and NBA best record in the month of March despite losing their best player alperin shenon their chances of making the Western Conference play in tournament and why eme Oka deserves some Coach of the Year considerations it’s

All coming up right here at locked on NBA you are locked on NBA your daily NBA podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day what what’s up and welcome to another edition of locked on MBA the biggest stories with the local experts I’m your host Jackson

Gatlin also host of locked on Rockets right here on the locked on podcast Network your team every day now today’s episode is brought to you by LinkedIn when you’re hiring for your small business you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role that’s why you have to check out

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Who you can track down wherever you listen to your podcast and on YouTube just search locked on Rockets here to break down the Houston Rockets 7 in1 record in NBA best in the month of March despite losing their best player in alperin shenon so why are the Houston

Rockets so hot right now riding a five-game win streak including some wins over the Phoenix Suns the Sacramento Kings and most recently a very good Cleveland Cavaliers team with a top three defense in the association well coming out of the All-Star break the Rockets kind of changed their emphasis

Offensively pre-all-star break Oka was tasked with turning around one of the NBA’s worst defenses and he’s made them a top 10 defense this season but in order to do that he really had to minimize areas on the floor where errors could occur and a lot of that meant not

Playing fast not playing in transition slowing things down to almost a crawl offensively and really playing a lot in the half court and playing almost exclusively through Alper and shenon their best player this season and that kind of you know neutralized and minimized some of the impact that some

Of the young athletes on this Rockets team can have guys like Jaylen green Amin Thompson and cam Whitmore guys who really Thrive when getting out and running in transition but going into the All-Star break and then coming out of the All-Star break the Rockets pre-all-star break were playing at a

About you know middle of the pack as far as you know NBA pace is concerned since that Point Post Allstar break the Rockets are top three in the NBA in Pace only trailing the Wizards and the Toronto Raptors basically they’ve sped things up at a considerable amount in

Order to get those guys opportunities out in transition to really open the game up for them and generate those easy opportunities because when you’re trying to turn one of the worst defenses around you’ve got to minimize opponent fast break chances and things like that so you don’t want the live ball turnovers

And the errors that you know often occur when you’re playing at a faster Pace especially when you’re trying to create kind of a strong foundation for a lot of these young guys you know second and third year players or or rookie players and that’s exactly what Oka managed to

Accomplish kind of in that first twoth thirds of the season and then decided to kind of open things up a little bit more post All-Star break and generate some of those easier opportunities so the Rockets had actually kind of already started this bit of a stylistic shift now unfortunately they lost Alper

Shingun likely for the rest of the season although it wasn’t reported as a season ending injury but for all intents and purposes he is more than likely not coming back this year he had a pretty scary looking injury at the end of regulation against the Sacramento Kings

In their win on the road a very it looked almost Paul georgees the way that he landed on his leg and it looked like he hurt both his ankle and possibly hyperextended his knee thankfully alarin shinon avoided major inj injy he’s only going to be out for about a month or so

It should you know carry him out unfortunately to the end of the regular season but no serious injury no ligaments torn nothing nothing broken now because of that though and because shingun has been the Rocket’s best player all season with a large portion of the offense kind of flowing

Through him the rockets by necessity have had to kind of adjust even further and lean into this new kind of space and Pace identity that they started to kind of adopt post All-Star break where they really emphasized playing with a lot more Pace they increased the volume of their three-point shooting even though

They’re not a great three-point shooting team they’re a team that realizes that Alper and shingon commands a double team pretty much the moment he touches a basketball or he’s going to score on you in single coverage or at the very minimum get to the free throw line he’s

Just been that good this season so they increased their volume of three-point attempts coming outside or coming out of the All-Star break I should say and after losing Alper and shinon rather than just throwing another big into the lineup and starting you know jock landale and just trying to make do there

The Rockets actually leaned even more so into this uh identity where they have since gone small they’ve moved Jabari Smith Jr to the Five Spot and inserted rookie Phenom Amin Thompson into the starting lineup who’s been an absolute Swiss army knife on the floor doing a little bit of everything for Coach eme

Udoka guarding you know at at an absolutely incredible level for or rookie probably the best rookie Defender that we’ve seen since herb Jones a couple years ago a guy that should absolutely at some point in his NBA career get many all-nba defensive team nods uh throughout his uh hopefully very

Long NBA career but throwing him you know out there and being able to have a one through five that switches everything defensively has really caused a lot of chaos for some of the teams that they’ve played now it’s a very small sample size right now only games

Uh against the San Antonio Spurs the Washington Wizards and most recently uh a very good Cleveland Cavaliers team but in that three-game sample size the Rockets have done a really fantastic job defensively honing in on opponents and limiting their offensive opportunities the point of attack defense has gotten

Considerably better kind of back to the way that it was earlier this season when the Rockets were a top five defense and for a while there the number one defense in the NBA this season they’ve since slipped a little bit they’re still maintaining a top 10 defense hovering

Around seven or eight currently but kind of getting back to some of those earlier routs that they had this season before they kind of struggled a little bit there they had some injuries dealt with some adversity uh kind of in the middle part of this season and offensively

They’ve had to change things up to where without Alper and shingun who was such a big part of their offense Oka has always preached an equal opportunity offense but Fred vanet and jayen green have both really stepped up in a big way without alprin shenon and this is something that

We’ve seen for the past couple couple years and it’s happening yet again where Jaylen Green’s post Allstar rake numbers have been incredible through his first two years of his NBA career and they continue to do the same here post All-Star break in his third season he’s averaging just under 22 points per game

Shooting 37% from the floor and 83% from the free throw line 44% overall you’d like that number to be a little bit better but he is doing a much better job finishing in and around the rim he looks a lot more comfortable in the offense bring in EM OA and adjusting the Houston

Rockets way of play or style of play from these past couple years under Steven Silas when they were losing you know 50 60 plus games a season for the first couple years of Jaylen Green’s career it’s been a really big adjustment for his play style trying to play

Winning basketball and we’re starting to see the benefits of Oka kind of trying to break him down and build him back up as a new player where he’s doing all the little things he’s hustling he’s making the right reads defensively he his point of attack defense has gotten a lot

Better it’s he’s arguably a plus Defender now after being a net negative Defender throughout the majority of his career his offense can still be a little inconsistent at times as he struggles to you know keep that three ball consistent in his repertoire but he’s gotten a lot

Better at understanding Tempo and how to change Pace when attacking the basket finishing around bigger stronger players absorbing contact around the rim and he’s really stepped up as the Rocket’s number one option with Al shenon no longer in the lineup and when you look at all the adversity that this Houston

Rockets team has faced this year and what em Oka has accomplished with largely the same group as last season the Rockets Marquee free agency signings were bringing in Fred Van vet and Dylan Brooks who have absolutely been differen makers but are not by themselves the reason that the Rockets have elevated to

A top 10 defense Oka came in and really turned this team around from being one of the Laughing stocks of the NBA to being a really respectable franchise and organization again with legitimate hopes here to push for the final spot in the Western Conference playing tournament Chase because they’re only a handful of

Games behind the LA Lakers and Golden State Warriors right now for that final playing spot currently three games back in the loss column of the LA Lakers and when you consider that the Lakers have been dealing with kind of this hodgepodge of injuries over there you

Know guys like ad and LeBron have been game to game and you know missing other key contributors there’s a very real possibility that the Lakers could find themselves falling out of the playing tournament bracket and the rockets with their hot play as of late the way that

They’re playing here in the month of March and hopefully to round out the rest of the NBA regular season they’re very much on Pace to win hopefully 40 games this year which is insane considering that their Vegas over under win total coming into the season was 31

A half games and they’ve already crushed that hitting 32 and they very realistically have a path forward to hit 40 despite they just lost their best player in alarin shenon they’re they currently also have lost cam Whitmore who’s been Sensational as a rookie and somebody that emo DOA has leaned on

Quite a bit and earlier this season they lost tar een who’s an absolute Difference Maker especially on the defense at M of the floor so when you look at the adversity that this group has faced an incredibly young group a group that did a lot of losing for the

Past few years being completely honest for Oka to step in as a year one head coach and make them a top top 10 defense and giving them a shot here you know in the final 15 games or so to push for a western conference play in spot after

Being a top four lottery team the past three years running that is a complete and insane turnaround for an organization to make in just one season and I think it absolutely warrants a discussion for em Oda to be at least in consideration for the NBA’s coach of the

Year award I’m not saying he should win it I think that honor largely will fall to either Finch with the Minnesota Timberwolves or Mark dagal with the OKC Thunder two coaches who have done an incredible job with their respective organizations but when you look at where the Rockets were and where they are

Right now and where they have the chance to finish this year I think he absolutely has to at least be in the discussion for coach of the year so for more Houston Rockets amusings and breakdowns you can track me down over at locked on Rockets wherever you listen to your podcasts or on

YouTube

Houston Rockets NBA Play-In Tournament Push & Why Ime Udoka Deserves Coach Of The Year Consideration

Jackson Gatlin (@LockedOnRockets) discusses how the Houston Rockets are 7-1 in March despite losing their best player in Alperen Sengun, differences in play style without Sengun, Jalen Green’s strong post All-Star break play, chance to earn the West’s final play-in tournament spot, and why Ime Udoka should be a COTY finalist.

#Rockets #NBA #ImeUdoka

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