Houston Rockets Dominate OKC Thunder in Their Preseason Finale

The Houston Rockets hosted the Oklahoma City Thunder last night, meaning, we got to see their new and improved home-courts for the first time. Unfortunately, that was the most exciting thing about the game for the first minute of play. 

Amen Thompson passed up a corner three-point attempt after Alex Caruso gave him plenty of space on the first possession. Instead of shooting, he chose to drive and post Caruso up, resulting in an airballed fadeaway jumper. Not a pretty start. 

To make things worse, Thompson smoked a layup on the very next play. Thankfully, Caruso retaliated with a wedgie from the corner, giving us our second jump-ball in less than one minute. 

This is where the game really started, as Thompson redeemed himself with back-to-back dunks. Add in a tough layup in traffic, and he scored Houston’s first six points. He didn’t stop there, throwing down two more dunks early on. 

Şengün got into the mix with a putback dunk of his own in the midst of Thompson’s barrage. The Rockets were clearly using size to their advantage, as Chet Holmgren has missed the whole preseason for OKC. Once Tari Eason caught a lob in transition, it was clear what type of night this was going to be. 

After 20 unanswered points, with most of the them coming in the paint, Houston had a 26-8 advantage. Marcus Smart was helping hold the reigning MVP scoreless, while OKC missed all of their nine attempts from beyond the arc. 

It was beautiful to see an absolutely dominant first quarter, ending 33-15. Everyone wearing red got in on the fun, with Reed Sheppard draining a three and Clint Capela getting a poster dunk. It goes without saying that Kevin Durant got a couple buckets too, as he does that in his sleep. 

You really couldn’t ask for a better start, but you can’t hold a team of champions down forever. They made a quick push to start the second quarter, but didn’t really cut into the league until there was only 3:17 remaining in the half.

SGA boosted his scoring total to 13 points after forcing Tari Eason to commit his fourth foul. The 18 point lead shrunk to five, before going into halftime at 54-47. If I’m being honest, the Thunder just stopped missing shots.

The same could be said for Houston in the third, as Bogdan Bogdanović started and was hot. His three straight triples extended the lead to 16, and VanVleet joined the party to give Houston their biggest lead of the night to that point. 

This is the run that finally made OKC waive the white flag. Both teams chose to start the fourth quarter with the end of their bench guys, and Houston’s were able to handle business. A nice blowout victory to get us ready for the regular season. 

More from RocketsRoundtable: 

Where the Rockets Can Improve Before Their Preseason Finale 

Why Marcus Smart Sat Out In Houston’s Preseason Opener

The Houston Rockets Can’t Beat the Top Teams in the West

How the Rockets’ Preseason Games Can Put Them Ahead of the Curve