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Rest or rust? With playoff seed secure, Ime Udoka wants Rockets to walk a fine line
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- Rest or rust? With playoff seed secure, Ime Udoka wants Rockets to walk a fine line
With their 2025 playoff seed (No. 2 in the Western Conference) officially locked up , the Houston Rockets held out numerous rotation regulars in Wednesday's road game against the Los Angeles Clippers .
The list of absences for nagging injuries or rest considerations included Fred VanVleet (sore right ankle), Alperen Sengun (sore lower back), Jabari Smith Jr. (sore left groin), Amen Thompson (rest), and Dillon Brooks (rest). Rotation regulars who did play, headlined by leading scorer Jalen Green , had limited minutes.
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All of those aforementioned players had marquee roles in Houston 's flagship wins last weekend over the Oklahoma City Thunder and Golden State Warriors , so none of those issues are believed to be serious in nature. If the game had playoff implications, all would likely play. But with little to play for over the remainder of the regular season and the playoffs about 10 days away, head coach Ime Udoka wants to be smart and avoid excessive risks.
"We've got a few guys that are nicked up, and hopefully we're in a position to make some decisions about getting guys totally healthy," Udoka told Danielle Lerner of the Houston Chronicle prior to clinching the No. 2 seed. VanVleet and Thompson both missed weeks with ankle issues, while Sengun and Smith spent at least some time on injury reports during the second half of the 2024-25 season.
Yet, at the same time, there's also the familiar debate of "rest versus rust." Rest is good, but for a surging team like Houston that entered Wednesday with 15 wins in its last 17 games, there can be at least some risk when it comes to straying from the proven formula and disrupting momentum.
So, as Udoka explained prior to Wednesday's tipoff, he's trying to balance the two considerations. While the Rockets (52-27) are largely resting against the Clippers, they could play most or all of their regulars during at least one (and possibly both) of the two final games of the 2024-25 regular season: Friday at the Los Angeles Lakers and Sunday at home versus the Denver Nuggets .
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"We don't want to take too much off and be rusty," Udoka said, via Dave Hardisty of ClutchFans .
With widespread absences, the Rockets started Green, Reed Sheppard , Cam Whitmore , Tari Eason , and Jock Landale at Intuit Dome against the Clippers (47-32). But that may not be the case versus the Lakers in two nights.
Green is the lone Houston player to have played in all 80 games this season. In a streak spanning more than two calendar years and dating back to February 2023, the 23-year-old has started almost 200 consecutive regular-season games.
More: With Lakers' loss, Rockets clinch No. 2 spot in 2025 West playoff field
This article originally appeared on Rockets Wire: Rest or rust? With playoff seed set, Rockets try to walk a fine line
