HOUSTON • Many people had wondered how the Houston Rockets would fare this season, having traded 2017 Most Valuable Player Russell Westbrook for John Wall, a player who had not stepped on a court in two years due to injury.
On the basis on their past two games, as long as the National Basketball Association team can keep him fit, James Harden will have a potent scorer beside him.
Wall recorded game-highs of 28 points, six assists and three steals as the hosts capped a back-to-back sweep of the Sacramento Kings with a 102-94 victory on Saturday.
Harden was a late scratch with an ankle sprain but Houston found sufficient scoring elsewhere, with Eric Gordon also adding 21 points and a double-double by Christian Wood (20 points, 15 boards).
And in Wall, the Rockets know there will be life after Harden should the NBA's scoring champion - he is averaging a league-leading 37 points this term - for the past three seasons be traded as per his reported request.
The guard is the first player to score 50 points in his first two games - he missed their opening two losses due to Covid-19 protocols - after an absence of at least two years since Michael Jordan did it for the Washington Wizards in 2001.
Rockets' rookie coach Stephen Silas has been blown away by the All-Star, whose speed and explosiveness were key factors in him making five straight All-Star appearances until 2018, when injuries disrupted his career.
Even more impressive is that the 30-year-old appears to be the Wall of old - one of the league's best two-way players.
He also had two blocked shots on Saturday, and his defence limited rising Kings star De'Aaron Fox - the guard paced his team with 23 points - to 17-of-42 shooting (40.5 per cent) over the two games in Houston.
"Whatever expectations I had, he's obviously exceeded them," Silas said after his team improved to 2-2 this season.
"We heard from people that said he looked good, but we didn't know until we got him."
On being written off as an elite player, Wall said he had not spent the past two years moping about after two major operations to remove bone spurs in his heel and to repair his torn Achilles tendon.
"I just put in a lot of hard work and dedication to get to this point," he added.
"I couldn't ask for a better start to be 2-0 in my first two games. When I'm healthy, I can be a lockdown defender. I feel like I'm the greatest shot-blocking point guard of all time. I bring so much to the game other than scoring."
With four of their next five games at home and Harden set to return during that sequence, Silas, whose team host the Dallas Mavericks today, is expecting his team to improve further as long as they continue to display other facets of their play.
"We really buckled down and played some defence," said Silas, who was an assistant coach for 20 years before joining Houston. "In order for us to be good, we have to be good on defence. We can't just outscore people."
REUTERS
