A wave of 5 consecutive losses sent the Rockets to the bottom of the league. Among them, the poor performance of the team players accounted for most of the factors. Since defeating Jazz , Green had a dispute with Smith, both of them performed extremely poorly. In the last game against Clippers , Green's touch picked up in the third quarter, but Smith was still at a low point, but the Rockets may end the 5 consecutive losses in the next game.
Let’s start with Green and Smith. Although the conflict between the two has been resolved on the surface, neither the performance nor the interaction gives people this feeling. And we can also see a few things from Godon ’s recent interview. Before the invention of Nessota, Gordon was asked about away games one after another in the interview. This is a good learning opportunity. What kind of advice would you give to young people? Gordon said: "I know our start is difficult, but at this time you have to focus on what we need to do. The teamwork we need, you have to win like a way. Although it is impossible to win all the games, sometimes we lag behind the opponent in the game because we make some mistakes. When we play more away games, we should be more united. For the overall interests of the team, make sure you can listen to the advice of your teammates."
These words from Gordon seem to be suggesting something. In fact, Gordon has talked about unity more than once in recent days, and even made some remarks about Green: "You can't always treat youth as an excuse, because there are many young teams in the league. We need to work together, and we must unite." These are potential evidence that the contradiction between Green and Smith has not been resolved. In the next game, the Timberwolves away game, the Rockets' latest injury report shows that the team's Tanhua Show Smith will be absent due to injury, which means that Silas has to be forced to change the team. Smith's absence may allow Martin Jr. to replace his starting position.
The key to the problem here is not Martin, but Smith. First of all, he has no state in the last few games. His offensive feel is too poor, and his defense will also be missed, and he will not be stuck. If he is missing from the starting lineup, he may have different effects, but the most important thing is to separate him from Green. In addition, the impact of Smith's absence is that the team's No. 17th pick Ethan and No. 23th pick Garuba can get more rotation time, especially Ethan. I don't know how many games it performs better than Smith, but he can only get 17 minutes of playing time per game. This time, not only Smith is absent, but Tate will also be absent, which means Ethan's playing time will increase significantly.
And Ethan can bring not only his strong defense, but in fact he also has more offensive skills than Smith. Maybe he is sometimes stubborn, but he can always play extremely high offensive efficiency in a limited time. Coupled with his influence on the defensive end, he may achieve unexpected results. I also hope Ethan can seize this opportunity to conquer Cylas.
Another factor that is beneficial to the Rockets' victory is that the Timberwolves' game is back-to-back. After the Rockets experienced the intensive schedule in the early stage, they got two days of breathing time. Although they were away games, they were waiting for their hard work.
