By Sam Amick / The Athletic
Houston Rockets coach Ime Udoka saved the best highlights for last.
After nearly 45 minutes of analysis, with players soaking in his messages at the team’s practice facility ahead of training camp, the montage of mayhem began.
First, it was a video clip from Dec. 2, 2023, in which Udoka told LeBron James and the rest of the Los Angeles Lakers to stop whining, leading to the coach’s ejection. Then came a clip of a dust-up in Milwaukee on Dec. 17, 2023, when Dillon Brooks and Udoka were ejected in the final minute for aggressively disputing a late call. The string of 15 separate altercations from the Rockets’ previous season kept running from there, entertaining them all.
“It’s his personality,” Rockets guard Fred VanVleet said of the presentation and Udoka’s role in it. “He’s a confrontational guy, a fighter, so it was funny to watch them all in order and see the buildup. But it’s about building that identity as a group and as a team. We’re built on toughness.”
Udoka had gone into great detail in the presentation about the defensive improvements that had been made, how the Rockets went from among the NBA’s worst teams in every relevant category before his arrival in 2023 to “top six,” Udoka said, in his first season with the team.
The message, in essence, was that they needed to get even better on that end if they were going to become a perennial playoff contender. But to get there, it would require a commitment to the motto that Udoka constantly preaches — “No friends on the floor” — and that was on full display in those fiery moments.
“We started to look at the frequency and the dates, and there was something every week from January on,” Udoka said recently in an interview. “The broadcasters would say: ‘Here goes another dust-up with Houston. It’s becoming an every game thing now.’ So that mentality had changed. And I told the guys, You have to earn the respect of the league and not take a back seat to anybody.”
Meet the all-gas, no-brakes Rockets, who are as feisty and unapologetic a team as the NBA has seen in quite some time.
After losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Cup semifinals on Saturday in Las Vegas, the Rockets are 17-9, which is one of the top four records in the Western Conference, and they are winning with their defense.
Defense was Udoka’s primary strength during his playing days, when he went undrafted out of Portland State before spending parts of seven seasons in the NBA and playing overseas.
His beliefs were buoyed during his first coaching job alongside the Spurs’ Gregg Popovich from 2012 to 2019, then put into action when he led the Boston Celtics to the NBA finals in 2022. (The Celtics’ defense went from 13th in defensive rating the year before his hiring to No. 1.) And for all the success the Rockets enjoyed under Mike D’Antoni as coach and James Harden at guard, they were never known as defense-first, intimidating types.
Two summers ago, the Rockets considered bringing Harden back. It was the most obvious way to return to relevance. But even beyond Udoka’s vision for the defense, Rockets officials were concerned the development of their two most important young players — the big man Alperen Sengun and guard Jalen Green — would be stymied if they added veteran standouts who were not truly compatible with their young core.
Enter veteran guards VanVleet and Brooks, who joined the team in the summer of 2023 and shined in their new roles as Houston improved to 41 wins from 22.
Udoka had a soft spot for VanVleet, in part because of the similarities in their stories. Both were undrafted before making it in the NBA, with VanVleet going on to become an All-Star and champion (with the 2018-19 Toronto Raptors). Brooks’ playing style and prickly personality, made famous during his Memphis Grizzlies tenure, were also perfect for what Udoka had in mind.
The ripple effect has been real.
After finishing no higher than 27th in defensive rating during three seasons under Stephen Silas, when the rebuild was in full effect and they won just 59 times in 222 tries, Udoka’s Rockets, who were 10th in defense last season, are now second. Considering the origin story of Udoka’s hiring, how team owner Tilman Fertitta and general manager Rafael Stone decided to prioritize a defensive mindset above all else, they could not ask for much more than this.
“When we were bringing Ime in, it wasn’t ‘best coach available,’” said Stone, 52, who has been with the organization since 2005 and was elevated to general manager in October 2020. “It was like, ‘We need somebody who can really impact defense for us.’ I do think he was the best coach available, so that ended up being nice, but that was a big focal area for us in terms of the type of coach we were going to hire.”
Last week, the Golden State Warriors felt Houston’s defensive dominance firsthand when they tied their season low in scoring while seeing their streak of 15 consecutive wins over Houston come to an end. The first quarter was a clinic, with the Rockets forcing six turnovers while holding Golden State to 18 points.
VanVleet, Brooks and the third-year big man Jabari Smith Jr. (the third pick in 2022) are the defensive leaders in the starting lineup, with Sengun (18.8 points, 10.6 rebounds, 5.3 assists per game) and Green (19.2 points, 4.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists) the featured offensive threats. VanVleet (15.6 points, 5.9 assists) and Brooks (12.6 points) are key contributors on that end as well.
It is the bench tandem of the swingman Amen Thompson (fourth pick in 2023) and forward Tari Eason (17th pick in 2022), though, that has been so entertaining on the defensive end. Fans call them the Terror Twins, for their ability to wreck opposing offenses together.
“We saw growth within all our guys last year,” Udoka said. “And so to come into this year with our second year of them not having to learn the schemes or terminology and what we’re expecting, you expect it to take somewhat of a jump.”
To hear the Rockets’ locker room leaders tell it, it is Udoka’s direct nature that makes it all work. If you ever see him covering his mouth for the cameras during a break in the action, he is probably ripping a Rockets player for a defensive mistake that simply cannot be tolerated. His candor can be caustic during postgame news conferences, too, like the Dec. 5 session in San Francisco where he said his team looked “soft or scared” after a 99-93 loss to Golden State that was avenged six days later.
“It’s very rare in the NBA,” VanVleet said. “Most coaches have to dance around the egos and the fragile personalities that the NBA can bring. We’re all high-strung, emotional, egotistical, highly paid guys, so to have a coach who really just says it straight and blunt is refreshing for me, honestly. That’s the way I grew up, and that’s the way I’ve always had most of my coaches throughout my life before the NBA.”
The goal from here, of course, is to build on this early momentum and be a true contender by the time the postseason rolls around.
“Nobody’s really going to want to see us coming,” VanVleet said. Praising Udoka for the team’s improvement, he added, “To be able to turn it around that quick, Coach definitely deserves a lot of credit for that.”
Not long before Houston tipped off against the Kings in Sacramento on Dec. 3, as Stone spoke and laughed about Udoka’s preseason presentation, which spoke volumes about the coach’s intense personality, the general manager unwittingly jinxed the night ahead.
“It’s been pretty quiet this year,” he said.
A few hours later, after a no-call against Sengun that infuriated Udoka, the coach was ejected for his profanity-laced pursuit of referee John Goble late in the loss. Sengun was ejected, too. Eason, who heard a heckler on his way off the floor, started to run up a nearby ramp toward the stands before he was stopped by security. Udoka kept the chaos going in his postgame news conference, relaying how he had told Goble to get some eyeglasses. League fines ensued.
But Stone, when asked about the events of that evening days later, was unbothered. Amused, even.
Just another day with these rowdy Rockets.
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