Rockets could get huge addition for stretch run
The Houston Rockets have won nine straight games to leap back into the playoff picture. And they could get a big boost before the season ends.
On “The Hoop Collective With Brian Windhorst,” ESPN’s Tim McMahon said there’s “a very real chance” that injured center Alperen Sengun could come back at the end of the regular season. Sengun suffered a severe ankle sprain and a bone bruise two weeks ago that forced him to leave Houston’s game with the Sacramento Kings in a wheelchair. It looked to many, including his team, like Sengun’s fantastic season was over.
But then Houston kept winning. The game in which Sengun went down was the second in the Rockets’ current nine-game win streak. Now they are within one half-game of the Golden State Warriors for 10th place. Not only are the Rockets winning, they’re doing so emphatically with an average margin of victory of 15 points.
Now, Sengun is moving around, and according to his coach, Ime Udoka, mostly doing “treatment and rehab.”
With three weeks until the play-in tournament, it’s likely Udoka will be fielding more questions about the status of his playmaking big man. Houston could use his 21.1 points, 9.3 rebounds and five assists, unless they’re worried about disrupting the team’s hot streak.
Rookie Amen Thompson has been great as a small-ball center in Sengun’s absence, averaging 15.7 points and 9.3 rebounds in his last six games, and shooting 62 percent.
Even in limited minutes, Sengun could be a huge boost, especially if the Rockets faced a matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers and their super-sized frontcourt of Anthony Davis and LeBron James. For a Rockets team that
hasn’t needed much help to dominate recently, a returning Sengun could help put them over the top against an experienced postseason foe.
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