Rockets Blast Past Spurs 111-106

This might be the best Rockets win of the season. It’s certainly my favorite win.

There’s been a lot of negativity around here (looks at self) regarding aspects of this year’s Rockets team, a good bit of it deserved. This is all positivity, though. That’s because this victory carried two great signs that we can all hope continue. The first is a return of the determination, fight, and intensity of last year’s Rockets team. A team that sometimes simply enforced their collective will on opponents, despite not necessarily playing better than that opponent. The second is a victory of awareness, of recognition of problems and some positive responses to those problems. Long may it continue.

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If you watched the first half of this game, you may be forgiven for finding something better to do with your life in the second half. This game was mostly a reward for Rockets degenerates, and a just punishment for those Spurs fans who think their team plays ethical basketball.

The first quarter was all Spurs, almost to the point of absurdity. It wasn’t that the Rockets came out flat, or didn’t score the ball. After a good 15-20 minutes levelling a rim with a big ladder and a fine German level, to repair Stephon Castle’s vandalism, the Rockets started with plenty of fire. It was more a case of absurdly hot Spurs being even more fiery from three, and Udokan Math not mathing. That is, trading threes for twos, constantly. The Spurs attempted 27 shots for the quarter. 13 of those shots were three pointers, of which they made 8. They went 4-14 around the basket, and in the paint, and 1-1 on a longer two point attempt. The Rockets? They had 21 FGA, and made 11-16 twos, and 2-5 threes. The Rockets also missed several free throws, while San Antonio didn’t.

There can be fewer clearer demonstrations of “three is more than two” and “quantity has a quality all its own” than this first quarter. Certainly there were Rocket defensive mistakes, mainly Alperen Sengun helping away from Julian Champanie, a 36% three point shooter on the season, who went 4 for 5 from three in the first. (He’s shooting a robust…

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Publish date : 2026-01-21 05:59:00

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