Paulo Alves

Yes.

And of course the Rockets aren't going to feel sorry for who the Thunder are missing when Houston's without a men Thompson and obviously Fred VanVleet and Steven Adams as well.

So I think first off,

With everything the Rockets absorbed this week, the back-to-back blowout losses at home to the Celtics and the Hornets, all the bad PR after the trade deadline, and then going down 15 early today, they needed this win.

This was a team that it felt like was teetering.

And if they had lost this game, especially if it was a blowout to the shorthanded Thunder, the way it looked early, that's the kind of thing that can linger.

as opposed to you get the win, now you have a couple of days off, you have a back-to-back Tuesday and Wednesday before the All-Star break, this assures that you're not going to go in the All-Star break on some sort of awful losing streak.

Like, this doesn't, you know, fix everything, but it does give you a chance to catch your breath.

I do think some of what's happened, it's an older team, there's a lot of injuries, so the Rockets are running on fumes a little bit, especially with the back-to-backs increasing.

And so they just needed...

to get a win to stabilize.

And the fact that it came against the defending champs on national TV, that only helps.

But I think the real story today, you know, defensively, the challenge would be a billion times more and will be when the Thunder have SGA and J-Dub.

Let's be honest about that.

But on the other end of the floor, for the Rockets offensively, I don't think the...

I don't think the formula is all that different, regardless of who the Thunder have out there, because defensively, they still have their marquee pieces.

And they're going to do what they do when it comes to, you know, physically defending Kevin Durant, the intense ball pressure, overplaying the passing lanes.

And I do think that relative to that opening night loss in Oklahoma City, the Rockets did some things better today on the offensive end of the court.

Most notably, Tari Eason and Jabari Smith Jr.,

And it makes sense because when a team defends how the Thunder did today and really how they do all the time, they are conceding driving lanes to guys who normally aren't great drivers and creators.