Alperen Sengun continues to dominate and the rookies are stepping up

Alperen Sengun continues to dominate and the rookies are stepping up

Just to Smith Jabari for three and the win he got it we here to F of Rockets news it’s a Rockets field podcast and as you can see I’m in my car because I wanted to give a quick recap why I had the time of the Rockets last couple of games where they

Were able to break that three- game loser streak and now they’re on a two- game winning streak after their easy win over the Detroit Pistons and last night over the Brooklyn nets for a while last game uh last night’s game against Brooklyn they did struggle in the first

Half similar to where they did Detroit and again it seemed like pep talk from ma uh kind of spurred the team on to actually take the game seriously and take over and actually play some defense in the third quarter had a 47 Point quarter third quarter against Detroit a

Couple of games ago and last night again they took control of the game uh late in the third quarter and they pretty much coasted all the way in the fourth quarter as they were able to get their second victory because yes these two teams aren’t exactly the top of the Heap

When it comes to NBA teams but these next couple games they’re going against the Minnesota timber woods and Milwaukee Bucks and Timber Woods are surprisingly the number one seed in the west and uh the Milwaukee Bucks are the number two seed out east so there are going to be

Two tough games the uh of course the Rockets already lost to Milwaukee Bucks early in the year we saw ma get tossed we saw Dylan Bru get toss because they definely weren’t happy with the way the game was being officiated and this is the first time they play in Minnesota

Which they’ll be taking them on Friday and Minnesota’s probably the F the the team that’s probably embarrassed the Rockets the most um I remember just watching games of previous three seasons seemed like Minnesota always had a lot of fun playing those Rockets teams we even remember Anthony Edwards telling

The Rockets SP to call a timeout after he hit a three and pretty much telling them that they can’t guard them and it that it pretty much what’s the case for most of the games against Minnesota it just seemed like that’s the team that was trying to embarrass the Rockets the

Most so it’d be really interesting to watch them go up against this version of the Rockets where this version of rockets it’s a rare occasion when they actually get blown out um yes they’re still hover around 500 but most games they’re usually in so it’ll be real interesting we don’t know if Dylan

Brooks will be back for that game I’m thinking probably not um but we have seen Jabari Smith come out the last couple games so yeah definitely been a welcome addition but the main thing I really want to talk about um not just these previous two games for just the

Whole season it’s been Al shenon um he has just been dominating all season long but specifically the six game stretch he’s on right now he’s been probably one of the top 10 players in the NBA in the last five games his lowest point output is 27 points and that was against

Detroit and that was just because the rockets blew Detroit out and the star a set for most of the fourth quarter if not all the fourth quarter in three of the last six game he’s uh scored over 30 points and to put that kind of in perspective how dominant he’s been this

Season specifically in this last stretch is in his first 173 games he scored over 30 points three times he has done that now three times in the last six games and probably would have did it in this game uh of the game before that in Detroit game if the Rockets weren’t

Blowing a mile by 20 or 30 points in the fourth quarter aler shenon has got to the point now where you’re really not even just talking about him being an possible allar we’re talking about him possibly being making an all NBA team that’s how good he’s been this

Season he is to the point now where opposing coaches and players on a game and game out basis when somebody ask him hey so what happened why did you lose this game the first thing out of their mouth is afon shenon last night uh they asked Brooklyn’s head coach Jack Von

Asked him what was the biggest difference in the game in the third quarter when the Rockets started to pull away and when the game was five he just said shenon that’s all he said he kind of went on to talking more about shenon but we saw that from Darin ham talking

About shanon we saw that from Rick Carlile we’ve seen opposing P players like Tyrese halber Kevin Durant all season long people been talking about Alon shanon and H Dominic he’s been this season and it’s just amazing to watch that when he was drafted yes people this

It was some people that knew about him how he was the MVP over in turkey and people expecting him to be good but coming out of that draft I think many people thought he would be the best player in that draft and so far this season he has been the best player in

That draft um Jaylen green has been up and down he’s slowly coming out of the slump but then he kind of had a little bit off game last game but Alper shenon is just taking off he’s been the number one player EV Mo’s been out hurt yes I

Know there’s Scotty Barnes and there’s different players like that but Alper Shon has continuously taking over games it’s to the point now where I I remember talking to ma after some of the post game and he always says that Shang is a common force or the common presence to

Where they’re struggling the offense they know they can dump it down to shenon and nine times out of 10 he’s gonna make the right play and it’s not only that he’s scoring he’s also rebounding over nine rebounds a game over five assists a game and he’s

Shooting 55% from the field so when he gets double team he’s going to usually make the right play so teams can’t just take him out of the game by like some you can just take him out of game by double team because they’re not good passers you can’t do that with Shaun you

Double team he going find he going to find a guy cut to the basket you double team is gonna find a guy for a wide open three so it’s really hard to try to take shenon out because he has so many different facets of his offensive game

And it’s not just that he’s great on offense he’s gotten a lot better on the defensive end to where he’s not even a liability anymore to where you can just leave him one-on-one guarding players like yonis Val jit who used to kill the Rockets uh for many years de sabonis

Another guy that used to have really good games against the Rockets he’s not the one getting in fou trouble like he was previous season he is the one that is getting other teams big men in foul trouble he’s doing that gameing and game Bas which is another thing that’s helped

The Rockers because like last night um when Nicholas Clon was trying to guard him he did a decent job but shenon got him in foul trouble and then when you get five fouls it’s a lot harder to guard somebody it was the same thing with jonis Val unit when the Rockets beat the

Um like a week or so ago he got him in early fou trouble to where they had to keep putting smaller guys on him and Shan was able to dominate Brooklyn tried to double team Shang last night was a couple times he split the double team

It’s just amazing to watch how far he’s come and that the Rockets basically were able to get him with a mid round first pick at this point if you do a redraft I would be shocked if he’s not top two I mean he probably should be number one

But I mean it might be some people that might draft somebody else but at this point he’s definitely a top two if you’re doing a redraft and the Allstar voting also came out today he’s actually top seven in All-Star voting so that’s something to keep in mind and remember

Tomorrow the NBA is actually letting you if you vote once it counts three times so that’s something to keep in mind Rockets fans he may not make it as a starter he probably won’t make it as a starter because there’s six guys in front of him as far as a front Court um

But he’s still a chance he can make it as Reserve because a lot of NBA coaches know about AER shanon and when you’re talking about reserve it really has nothing to do with the fan voting is more about the coaches and what they want as far as the reserves are

Concerned so he still has a chance to make it as a reserve if he doesn’t make it as a starter but as right now he’s number seven as far as Wern conference front Court players um another couple of people I want to talk about before I

Wrap up this quick recap of the last couple gam for the Rockets is the Rockets rookies uh they’ve had an upand Down Season we know a man has been dealing with a lot of injuries all the way back to the offseason we know that Cam’s been back and forth between the G

League and and not necessarily getting a lot of playing time the last night Cam Whitmore got the playing time early in the first quarter something you haven’t seen a lot from him he is almost at a point of minute if you go look at his total points and his total minutes he’s

U at one point he was like at 55 points in 66 minutes and then he was at 66 points in 88 minutes it’s just crazy that basically when he comes in he’s gonna get you a bucket and he did that again last night he had 11 points one of

His better games as a pro as he got a good amount of playing time if I’m not mistaken he got around s 15 minutes last night and also amen Thompson who’s slowly working his way as that backup point guard that the Rockets sely needs so that Fred Van v is not playing 40

Minutes a game because at one point Fred Van Ved if not now he was leading the league in minutes that’s something you don’t want to see from your 30 point 30-y old uh veteran point guard you don’t want him leading the league in minutes but now that a man is slowly

Getting his footing under him he had another double dig game last night he played 20 minutes another thing that still stood out to me is that the rookies were playing all the way until like the seven minute Mark in the fourth quarter when it was still a fairly close

Game the Rockets were up like 10 or 12 points the rookies were still playing and that kind of shows that Ma is kind of getting um a lot more I would say comfortable with the rookies something that I think that would go a long long

Way when as far as it comes to whether they getting a lot of playing time going forward so that was something good to see I know there’s injuries and yes that factor tar wasn’t playing but I think if Cam particularly keeps playing the way he’s playing

I think he can carve his way into a rotation man I think the thing with ma is he want consistency on defense he want to make sure you’re in the right spot it’s not just about being a scorer but he want to make sure he can trust

You on the defensive end and that you’re not going to turn the ball over and you’re G to be in the right spots so if Cam can continue to do that I think he can eat into those Jon tap minutes I think he’s already passed Reggie Bullock

We saw that last night he came in before Bullock even hit the floor so I think he can take some of those tap minutes even when t e Dyan Brooks get back so that’ be something interesting to watch as well I don’t think we’ll see cam going

Back to the G League at all this season I think he’s firmly on the team now then just a matter if he’s gonna get the minutes or not but this is probably the best combo game we saw from al man and cam together um in one game so far this

Season so I don’t think Dylan probably be back this Friday I don’t know about t that’s a whole another story he’s still dealing with that lower leg injury that he’s been dealing with for the last several weeks I think that’s something he’s going to be dealing with the Ralph

This season we when I we talked to Coach after one of the games he said that it’s just something that he’s trying to fight through and it’s going to be kind of a game in game out basis on whether he plays it maybe just a matter of him

Having to take more of extended time to be able to rest that lower leg um maybe around an Allstar break but at this point now he’s pretty much a a game time decision pretty much every single game so I just something there to keep in

Mind but it’s good to see Cam and amen getting their footing and actually getting the minutes to be able to go out there and play um but again the Rocks were able to break they three- game winry against pisson they have now won two straight now the real test comes up

On Friday they take on to Minnesota timber the number one team in the Western Conference and then on Saturday they take on the Milwaukee Bucks the number two team in the Eastern Conference and I’ll be out at the game Saturday so I’ll have all the pre and

Post game interviews up on the YouTube channel and again I want to thank everybody for their support we’re well over 12200 subscribers now and we’ve only we only started back in May so that’s pretty amazing that we’re already up to over 1200 subscribers so definitely appreciate support So if

You’re not subscribed and you seen us for the first time definitely make sure you subscribe because that helps us with the YouTube algorithm and that helps other people see this Rockets content that we continue to try to put out so make sure you subscribe make sure you

Hit that like button uh me and Vader will be back on Sunday for a podcast recapping the Friday and Saturday game so make sure you check that out as well and as usual we appreciate all support and make sure you check out the next episode of the rocket fuel podcast

Alperen Sengun leads the Rockets to their second straight win. Amen and Cam continue their strong play. The first NBA ALL Star Votes are released

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