The Rockets may continue to alternate guards John Wall and Victor Oladipo during back-to-back games, writes Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle. There are injury concerns with both players, and coach Stephen Silas indicated he plans to be careful with them.
“We’re still kind of working it out,” he said. “Victor obviously is coming off the foot injury. John participated today in the limited practice that we had, but he’s getting treatment on the foot that got landed on (Friday) night (against Toronto). We’ve had some early conversations because haven’t cemented what the plan is going to be. I wouldn’t say that both will play both (games).”
Back-to-backs will be a greater concern in the second half of the schedule, as Houston has 10 of them in its 38 games. Assuming both players remain with the team past the March 25 trade deadline, that could pose a major obstacle to turning the season around.
“It hasn’t been great in the first half not having one of those guys on the basketball side,” Silas said, “but the long-term prognosis, the health, has to be first and foremost and we have to figure out the basketball part around that.”
There’s more NBA news from Texas:
- The Rockets are trying not to focus on the 10-game losing streak that has dropped them nearly to the bottom of the Western Conference, Feigen adds in a separate story. Today’s practice featured a long video session that concentrated on correcting mistakes. “We just got to keep getting better, man,” Oladipo said. “Stay optimistic and positive. I know it’s tough right now, obviously. It’s easy to kind of go the negative route. That’s not going to solve anything. In fact, it’ll make things worse. It’s just us. We’ve just got to figure out a way to win every night.”
- The Spurs are missing five players due to health and safety protocols, and coach Gregg Popovich doesn’t expect to have a full team again until after the All-Star break, according to Tom Orsborn of The San Antonio Express News. Popovich said the five players — Derrick White, Keldon Johnson, Rudy Gay, Devin Vassell and Quinndary Weatherspoon — won’t all return at the same time.
- Kristaps Porzingis has been cleared to return for the Mavericks tonight, tweets Callie Caplan of The Dallas Morning News. “I don’t see him going into the high 30s or anything like that, but we have not talked about any specific minutes limits,” coach Rick Carlisle said of Porzingis, who missed the past three games with back tightness. “Everything’s very positive at this moment.”
Rockets do three things
1 Identity the franchise player John Wall and Victory Oladipo
2. Establish new style of play – rebounds and defense
3 Predict the luck in lottery picks
John Wall and Christian Wood
Rodions Kurucs and Kenyon Martin, Jr.
James Harden and Russell Westbrook
Should of been CP3 and Westbrook.
Ralph Sampson and Hakeem.
Pretty sure they just need to stay healthy. Seriously how many games have the Rockets had Wall, Oladipo, and Woods on the court together?
Just three, all wins.
KP looked good last night against Nets. But if you watched the gm. You saw small guys still hold him out and push him out. When he got deep and got ball right away he did good. I keep saying this he needs 40 LBs. He is still avoiding contact. Not like he gotta look for it but with more LBs. He can take it and give it back more. He can still be a shooter, won’t hurt his offense.
If you’re the Celtics… Would you swap John Wall for Kemba Walker?