One bad quarter exposed the Rockets
Houston went 5-0 with the NBA’s top-ranked offence before Friday. Then Dallas beat them 116-111, and the damage came in a single quarter: the Rockets allowed 40 points in the fourth. Cooper Flagg and Kyrie Irving led a Mavericks rally from an 11-point deficit in the second half.
Coach Ime Udoka named the problem himself, and it was transition defence. A team that scores as freely as Houston does gets away with leaks for a while. Against a good opponent over 12 minutes, it does not.
The Rockets were also short-handed. Alperen Sengun and Reed Sheppard both sat out with back issues, and the status of either for Saturday was not clear from the team’s pre-game coverage.
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Oklahoma City arrives with its own problems
Houston hosts the Thunder on Saturday, and the visitors are in worse shape than the numbers on paper suggest. Oklahoma City lost by 24 to Dallas and is missing several key players. The biggest absence is Chet Holmgren, who is out for eight to 10 weeks.
Coach Mark Daigneault has been public about what comes next: younger players move into bigger roles, and he expects them to improve with experience. That is a reasonable plan over a season. It is a harder sell on a Saturday night against a home team that has just lost for the first time and wants an answer.
For Houston the task is narrow. The offence has not been the issue, so Udoka’s group needs to show it can get back and defend the break against a depleted opponent. A clean first half would go a long way.
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