Ime Udoka kept pulling Reed Sheppard and Amen Thompson aside late Wednesday night, and with 60 seconds left in Game 5 he did it again as Austin Reaves stood at the free throw line. The Houston Rockets were hanging on to a 99-93 win over the Lakers, and their 48-year-old coach used one arm on each guard’s hip to make sure they understood the moment.
“When I’ve got my arms around Amen and Reed, I’m telling them, ‘This is the point in the game where you guys take over,’” Udoka told The Athletic after the win. He said he wanted the two to be the guards, to be demonstrative and dictate the possession, and Houston listened well enough to extend a series that once looked all but finished.
The Rockets now have a chance to become the fifth team in league history to force a Game 7 after falling behind 3-0, a comeback no NBA team has ever completed. That is why Wednesday mattered beyond the final score. Houston had already coughed up two turnovers in the final 28 seconds of regulation in Game 3 before losing in overtime, and Udoka responded afterward by calling on the group to grow up. This time, his team protected the ball late and the only turnover in Game 5 came from Alperen Şengün with nearly nine minutes left to play.
For a coach known around the league as unusually intense and confrontational, the sideline scene fit the script. Udoka did not coach from a distance. He directed, touched and pressed his message into the two young guards while the game still hung in the balance. The Rockets have also been doing this without Kevin Durant, who missed four of the five games in the series because of knee and ankle injuries and sat out the last two Houston wins.
Houston’s rally is not complete, and the history sitting in front of it is blunt. The Rockets still trail 3-2, and no NBA team has ever won a series after falling behind by three games. But Wednesday night left them one step closer to becoming the team that at least makes the league’s oldest comeback streak truly uncomfortable, with Jabari Smith and the rest of the roster carrying that pressure into the next game.
