Danielle Lerner

@danielle-lerner.bsky.social

5588 Followers 164 Following

USA TODAY national sports enterprise reporter. California transplant, but the cool kind. 🏳️‍🌈 dlerner@usatodayco.com

Lucas Ramirez and Aaron Judge speaking in a hallway after Ramirez hit two home runs in Brazil’s World Baseball Classic loss to the USA. Ramirez is holding his cell phone in his hand because he had just snapped a selfie with Judge, who congratulated him on his performance.

Rockets coach Ime Udoka: "Some communication that we need to get better at. I think Fred was a big piece of that last year in the top and kind of getting guys set in slots, and it’s not a traditional 2-3. We don’t want it to be like that, so it’s more of a matchup zone. When nobody’s in your area, you need to rotate to find a body, find a man. So there are some unconventional things about it that we showed and walked through, especially in training camp, and we want to keep it that way.”

Newspaper sports section front page containing an image of Rockets forward Tari Eason and his late father, above an article written by Danielle Lerner

On Friday before the Rockets boarded a plane to Boston, Thompson said he was excited to return to the site of his clutch shot, but there was something else weighing on his mind.

Thompson was disappointed by his lack of aggression in Houston’s consecutive losses to open the season. As the Rockets adjust to life after Fred VanVleet’s injury, Thompson is still learning the point guard position and how to balance setting up his teammates with attacking to create his own shot. In a conversation after the Rockets’ 115-111 loss to the Pistons, Rockets assistant coach Ben Sullivan urged Thompson to trust his speed and instincts.

“He understood we lost a few close ones, and the impact he could have had if he was a little more aggressive,” Udoka said. “He has a lot on his plate offensively being at point guard now.”

In Boston, Thompson found himself again and at the same time put the Rockets one step closer to figuring out how to stifle opponents and sustain an offense that ranks as the NBA’s best five games into the season.

List of Rockets players: Adams, Capela, Durant, Eason, Finney-Smith, Green, Holiday, Okogie, Sengun, Sheppard, Smith Jr., Tate, Thompson and VanVleet are on standard contracts. Two-way contract players are Isaiah Crawford, JD Davison and Kevin Harris.