Houston Rockets head coach Ime Udoka raised eyebrows after the team’s 117-106 win over the Los Angeles Clippers at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood. In his postgame press conference, Udoka was asked how Alperen Sengun can continue to grow and stated he needs to stop crying.
“Just continue to be a physical presence on both sides,” Udoka said. “But really my thing is to concentrate on the things you can control, which is looking to score and not looking to get fouled as much. Playing through contact and not looking for a call or letting missed shots affect you on the other end.
“They went after him tonight anytime he had it in the post and he found guys and that was the reason we had those wide-open looks,” Udoka continued. “So, some nights it’s going to be a scoring thing, some nights it’s going to be facilitating and he has to be able to do both.
“But, my biggest thing with him is, I say to him, ‘Don’t get the European out of your game. Play through stuff. Stop crying,'” Udoka added.
There’s always been a lot of talk about European players crying too much and hating physicality, but Udoka seems to think that applies to the non-Europeans now. He wants Sengun to stop crying for fouls like them and instead play through contact without complaining.
Sengun wasn’t too aggressive in this game against the Clippers, as he turned into a facilitator considering there was so much defensive attention on him. The 22-year-old finished with just 11 points (4-9 FG), 10 rebounds, and six assists on the night as the Rockets snapped a two-game losing streak to improve to 16-8 on the season.
The Rockets have had a fabulous start to this campaign, as they are third in the standings in the West, and Udoka and Sengun deserve a lot of credit for it.
Sengun is now averaging 18.5 points, 10.6 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1.1 steals, and 1.1 blocks per game in 2024-25. The Rockets are the best rebounding team in the NBA this season (averaging 49.9 per game) and he is a big reason why they’ve been so dominant on the glass.
As for Udoka, he continues to show why he might just be the best defensive coach in the NBA. The Rockets have a defensive rating of 105.4 this season, which ranks second. They were one of the worst defensive teams in the league before they hired him in 2023 and he has completely transformed them on that end of the floor.
Udoka nearly led the Rockets to the playoffs in his first season, but they just missed out on the Play-In spots by finishing 11th. I think, at this point, it’s safe to say he will succeed at getting them into the postseason and that would be quite an impressive feat considering how bad they were before he got there.
Udoka wouldn’t be looking that far into the future at present, though. His focus would be on helping the Rockets win their NBA Cup quarterfinal clash against the Golden State Warriors at Toyota Center on Wednesday at 9:30 PM ET.
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