Most of the time, you get a solid break between opponents. Sure, home-and-homes exist, but they’re fairly rare.
The Rockets and Bucks met just a few days ago, with Houston riding an impressive second quarter run to a victory. Still, the Rockets had no answer for Giannis Antetokounmpo and likely won’t have an answer again tonight.
What truly bothered the Rockets in that contest, especially in the first quarter, was the length the bucks had at all positions. They are taller in general that other teams and for that reason make life difficult on drivers. They also lead the league in points in the paint.
In that first quarter, Milwaukee did an outstanding job of running the Rockets off the the 3-point line. The Rockets did their normal thing where they couldn’t hit a 3 (Eric Gordon even airballed a corner triple somehow), starting 0-8 in the frame and eventually reaching 0-11 in the second before Gordon hit one and the Rockets decided they were done struggling from deep for the night. The rest of the game saw the Rockets shoot an impressive 42% from deep. Houston won quarters 2-4 and walked out with a 111-92 victory.
So what’s changed since Wednesday? Not a ton for Houston. Ryan Anderson is still out with the flu. Sam Dekker is starting and Clint Capela has wiped off some rust, so that’s nice.
Milwaukee is on a 5-game losing streak and held a players-only meeting the other night. Jabari Parker talked about how he spoke up at the team meeting and the players decided he should come off the bench for a game. The Bucks still lost that one to Miami.
Tonight, I expect a better performance out of the Bucks and the Rockets should be prepared for that as well. On Wednesday, two players for the Bucks shot better than 50%. One was John Henson who went 2-3. The other was Antetokounmpo’s 13-20 shooting night. In their building, it will just take a couple more Bucks stepping up to give Milwaukee the slingshot they could use to fell the Rockets.
Tip-off is at 7pm CT.
For an opponent’s perspective, visit Brew Hoop.