Pas de Deux - Spurs And Rockets - This Time It’s In Houston!

Houston Rockets (14-49) vs. San Antonio Spurs (16-48)

March 5, 2023, 6:00 p.m. CT

Location: Toyota Center, Houston, Texas

TV: AT&T SportsNet

Radio: SportsTalk790

Online: Rockets App

Spurs SB Nation Blog: Pounding the Rock

Projected Starting Lineups

Rockets: Kevin Porter Jr., Jalen Green, Kenyon Martin Jr., Jabari Smith Jr., Alperen Şengün

Spurs: Tre Jones, Devonte Graham, Keita Bates-Diop, Jeremy Sochan, Zach Collins

Porter may be out for “Load Management” which I hope means we see TyTy Washington and Josh Christopher, though Daishen Nix looks like a plausible NBA bench player lately. Like an Alaskan bear, he appears to have awakened from his season-long hibernation leaner and hungrier. I’m not sure his processing speed will ever be fast enough for starter minutes, but he could maybe be a bench player, if he does the stuff that got him to the NBA in the first place (#1 is - successfully attack the basket, #2 is - keep blackmailing management).

That’s right, the NBA’s biggest tank battle is raging across south and south-east Texas as the Rockets and the Spurs continue to “fight it out” to see who will be in last place. The speed trap of Selma, Texas, (let me know if there’s anything else there besides police cars, hiding with radar guns - some have speculated the town was incorporated (illegally) solely to collect fines from drivers) has been reduced to rubble by the battle as it shifts eastward towards Houston. No one will miss it.

Anyhow, the Rockets played some of the prospects who have been gathering dust on the bench, and played with intensity and pace. It worked. They lead most of the game, held off a comeback, and won.

These Rockets really should be an ensemble cast. No one is that good, but together, they’re too big, too fast, and too athletic for most teams to handle. At one point in the last game, something clever happened. Boban was inserted not as a “Defeat Cigar” but as a rim deterrent when the Spurs were just waltzing to the basket. It worked. Boban just standing there with his hands up makes layups hard. You have to try to shoot, and the Spurs can’t do that.

It’s almost as if you could, if you tried, do something different with these Rockets.

Is it better, or worse, late than never?