There are few green shoots in Houston. There are, there are. Although they let themselves be seen with a dropper. Sengun (20) seems to have found the starting place that was expected of him, Gordon (19) has improved his form, Green (34) is walking around the court, Porter (17) is an outside help of inexcusable quality and, in addition, , The path is beginning to be made with the Spanish Garuba, one of the unknowns after the EuroBasket and the vague ideas that Silas had for him. In the test of the visit to Orlando, the power forward had to dance with the ugliest, the Italian-American Paolo Banchero (number one in the 2022 Draft), and he had to suffer to learn. This would not be anything remarkable, in addition to praising the 30 points of the Magic player and the mate he made on the Azuqueca player in a penetration, if it were not to add that Usman is linking games with a good presence on the pitch These 19 minutes of the Amway Center, with only four more substitutes in his team, are golden knowing that they served for a victory. The Rockets are placed with a still bad balance, 2-9, but stretching their smile after signing a 127-134 in which good news is seen wherever you look.
Houston moved the ball better in the first half and in the same time they were also gaining the confidence that their players were generating through the passes. They went from outside shots with disadvantageous positions to the natural evolution of leaving only one to execute. Jalen Green was a player who exemplified this. It grows in this second year. Something else is missing from Jabari Smith, this year’s promising rookie and with whom he had some friction at the beginning, who is still not at the level expected of him. Garuba was invited to Banchero’s dance, which he generated alone, and he also overcame a first viral hurdle to enter the team’s dynamics and finish the night with two points, two assists and a rebound that do count.
The key, or one of them, was in the three-point shot. The Magic having a fabulous percentage, a 48% success rate, was very little if we put it in comparison with that of the Rockets. 24 involved in 48 attempts, an outrage. “We are not going to put them in every night, but at least we create opportunities for the teammates who are alone”Stephen Silas said at the end. D’Antoni’s Rockets showed up for one night, those of the 3+D in which James Harden was the king of the NBA and played for them, and it’s enough to kill a streak of six straight losses and to get the first victory away From home.
Matched until almost the end was this confrontation. Wagner, the young man with the invisible mistakes, made his way alongside Carter, Bamba or veteran backup Terrence Ross in the second half. The Rockets were leaving, in the third they had a sixteen advantage after a kill by the outstanding Kenyon Martin. With a couple of actions in which they added three on three and the demonstration that Bamba is worth up and down, with a layup that came after a block, the Magic got to three points with almost ten minutes left in the evening. But that’s where the air reached them. Passes from Porter, Green or Garuba himself helped to unblock and with it the Rockets were able to amass the new advantage that earned them the win.
