The Rockets continued their absolute dominance of the NBA Summer League winning their first game pretty handily over Phoenix, 100-82, at The Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas.
Lots of little stories to get to, but the biggest story was the pro debut of Houston first round draft pick Patrick Patterson. I know it's just Summer League, but if you weren't excited about Patterson before you should be now. In twenty minutes of play, he was 8/9 with 18 points and two rebounds. He also showed off his range by sinking both of his three point attempts. Yes, this guy is a much better perimeter shooter than I personally knew about. And from the comments in the game thread, many others were quite surprised as well.
Jordan Hill started the game really shaky and looked flat out bad in the first half. But he regained his composure in the second half and showed off some new post moves that he has obviously been practicing in the offseason. He finished with 16 points on 7/10 shooting to go along with 5 boards and 2 assists. He was getting no love from the refs though as he picked up four fouls in the first half and picked up his sixth in the final few minutes of the game. Still, some encouraging stuff from Jordan. He will still need to bulk up to keep some of the larger centers of the league from backing him down easily.
Jermaine Taylor obviously had the green light to shoot tonight. Because I don't think the work "pass" is in his vocabulary. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. He ended the night with 25 points on 10/19 shooting with a highlight reel flush. He must have passed at least three times as he totaled three assists to go along with seven rebounds. Rick Adelman is high on the kid and I understand why. There is still plenty of room for growth for Taylor, but he already looked worlds better tonight than in his rookie campaign.
Overall, a fun debut for the 2010 Rockets Summer League team. They had 54 points in the paint and 13 points on the fast break. But one thing Summer League has taught us is that ball movement doesn't happen too much. So those stats may be a bit watered down. They'll be back at it tomorrow night against the Dallas Mavericks at 9pm Central Standard Time.