Just a few months after the Rockets small ball team did not play in the center, Houston’s new coach Stephen Silas says he is open to potentially using two at the same time.
The great emerging man Christian Wood was a revelation in the attack during his recent trip to Portland and Denver, averaging 27 points (55% FG) and eight rebounds per game. However, the 25-year-old – who starts at the center for the 2020-21 rockets – sometimes struggled in defense against bruises, great physicists like Jusuf Nurkic from the Trail Blazers and Nikola Jokic with the Nuggets. Even so, Silas had no choice but to endure, as the DeMarcus Cousins support center was put aside in quarantine and Bruno Caboclo, third stringer fought hard.
That dynamic could change from Thursday against Sacramento, with Cousins now back on the team after clearing the quarantine. But, as Silas sees it, it won’t necessarily be a debate between athletics and Wood’s ability versus Cousins’ power and physicality. In certain clashes, the Rockets could use the two bigs together, as Wood should be agile enough to handle minutes at the power forward point.
When asked after Wednesday’s team training if he was open to playing Wood and Cousins together, Silas replied:
Yes, I am definitely open to that. To have DeMarcus, who can defend himself against these guys, we don’t need to get into so many help situations, as we saw in the Denver game against Jokic. We had to help a lot, which opened up all the things he does well. He can actually pass the ball, find the cutters and then offensive rebounds, because we are out of position. Having Cousins out there will certainly help our post defense.
But Christian has the ability to stretch four – which, I think, all four might be stretches now. It used to be, there would be the Matt Bullards in the world who were almost four. But C-Wood can definitely retain that role and play pick-and-roll and make it difficult for teams to guard.
Wood and Cousins were never active simultaneously in the preseason, with Cousins losing the fourth and final game for planned maintenance and Wood losing the top three with an elbow wound. Therefore, Silas still needs to have both bigs activated at the same time, which – in addition to the practice time – prevented any Cousins-Wood experiment.
That changes on Thursday night, when Houston will play their first home game in the regular season. The dispute between the Rockets (0-2) and the Kings (3-1) is scheduled for 18:00 Central Toyota Center, with the game broadcast by AT&T SportsNet Southwest in the usual Houston markets.