Boston Celtics SG Jaylen Brown is defended by Houston Rockets SF Dillon Brooks in the third quarter.
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Houston Rockets leading scorers Alperen Şengün and Jalen Green combined for just 23 points Monday night in a road contest at the defending-champion Boston Celtics. A pair of unexpected reinforcements led Ime Udoka‘s squad in a marquee 114-112 victory.
Second-year sensation Amen Thompson closed Monday’s contest with his first-career game-winner, a floater in the lane over Boston wing Jaylen Brown with just under a second remaining. Thompson poured in a career-high 33 points in the victory, and he punctuated his late-game heroics with quite the satisfying postgame note: “I felt like Kobe.”
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Thompson led the Rockets late. Dillon Brooks carried Houston early. The veteran wing and leading NBA trash talker canned four threes in the first quarter, and he jawed with Brown after each successive make throughout the evening. Brooks finished the night with 36 points and a Rockets-record 10 made threes. Neither Brown nor Boston co-star Jayson Tatum were bothered by the result postgame.
“[Brooks] hit 10 threes tonight. It’s tough. Didn’t account for that at all,” Tatum said postgame. Brown offered a similar refrain, noting “the people we wanted to make beat us, beat us tonight.”
Boston employed a sound strategy Monday night despite the results, and I suspect there isn’t much hand-wringing from Joe Mazzula’s squad over a single loss in January. For the Celtics, Monday night could soon be a distant memory. For the Rockets, the victory at TD Garden could define their season. Houston entered 2024-25 as a supposed fringe playoff team. The Rockets now enter Tuesday holding the Western Conference’s No. 2 seed at 32–14, and, more importantly, their recent schedule is packed with wins over expected championship contenders. Ime Udoka’s squad swept the Cleveland Cavaliers and Memphis Grizzlies in home-and-home series earlier this month. They won at the Denver Nuggets on Jan. 15, then secured Monday’s win at Boston.
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Şengün effectively shrugged in the Toyota Center locker room after last week’s win over a then-36-6 Cleveland team. A different scene emerged in the visitor’s locker room Monday night.
“The fact that we battled back, and playing against some of the top teams, it gives us, obviously, some confidence,” Udoka told reporters postgame. “But to see a last shot going like that is big for Amen, and obviously the team celebrated.”
Monday night was the highlight of Houston’s season, and given the lows of the franchise’s rebuild, beating Boston was likely the Rockets’ most consequential victory since Game 1 of the 2020 Western Conference finals. The playoffs are on the near horizon for Udoka’s team. Monday night was a primer for the postseason—one Houston passed with flying colors.
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Boston Celtics SG Jaylen Brown stares down Houston Rockets SF Dillon Brooks after Brooks made a 3-pointer in the fourth quarter at TD Garden.
Boston Globe/Boston Globe via Getty Images
Jan 28, 2025
