Ime Udoka Explains the Rockets’ Issues After Game 2

Rockets head coach Ime Udoka has received plenty of criticism for his lack of offensive adjustments, and that was even more loud during and after Game 2. His style of isolation basketball has not worked well with this team at various points against playoff competition. 

He shared his overall takeaways from the first two games of the series when asked in the press conference. 

“Defending well enough but not scoring. That’s the bottom line of these two games. We need to figure out ways to see the ball go in the basket, attack out of that and get to some sets where we’re not as stagnant and turn-over prone,” Udoka said. 

Udoka explained what went wrong once again when the Lakers doubled Durant. 

“Turnovers are a part of it. We’ve got to be aggressive and be in attack mode out of that. Too many times we held it, they get back to their matchup and we don’t have any advantage and get a late shot clock,” Udoka said. 

It really started to become a factor in the third quarter when the Rockets could only manage 17 points. With Durant not scoring himself, the offense became stagnant and Houston did not have an answer. No one else consistently stepped up. 

That starts with Alperen Sengun. The Rockets All-Star center ended up with good numbers of 20 points, 11 rebounds, five assists, four steals, and two blocks, but it was a different story during the game. He was inconsistent and struggled with shot selection. Udoka gave his thoughts on Sengun’s performance. 

“Think being a little hesitant when you’re in there. You gotta go and he did that a few times and went and got layups, but you got to be aggressive and not hesitant there. You’re point blank at the basket or you’re finding guys, and I think just a little too much hesitation and that makes you miss those shots,” Udoka said. 

When the offense was struggling late during the season, the Rockets turned to Reed Sheppard to lead as the only true point guard on the roster. It provided great results with ball movement and a rejuvenated offense. 

He only played 11 minutes in Game 2 off the bench and scored 0 points. Even then he was plus-1 thanks to three assists and a steal. The Rockets offense did look a bit cleaner when he was in the game, but Sheppard was also 0/3 from three. While he may have deserved more minutes, Sheppard has to heat up shooting-wise. 

This is what Udoka said regarding Sheppard postgame. Clearly, he never considered him an option.

“I think we were guarding well enough, and with the unit that we had in, we went small and switched a lot of the action so stayed with that. Holding them to 101 is enough, we just didn’t score,” Udoka said. 

Udoka explained how the Rockets missed some open threes when they were able to make some good plays. 

“Missed too many layups and threes, scoring has been a problem in this series, shooting 40 percent again,” Udoka said. “Too many points left off the board, either point-blank layups or wide-open kick-out threes. Just not shooting it well.”

Udoka gave credit to Marcus Smart for making some tough shots, but clearly admitted the defense was not good enough on both Luke Kennard and Smart and failed to rotate when switching in the second half. Smart had 25 points on 5/7 shooting from the field.