Ime Udoka’s Merry Fight Club — The Rockets Show The Heart The Lakers Lack With Amen Thompson and Friends Refusing To Let Houston Lose Its Season

Tari Eason is feeling the moment, pumped to be part of this Houston Rockets team that refuses to roll over or back down. As the third-year forward leaves the locker room and heads down the long corridor back to the court, he spots a group of about 15 Rockets fans waiting and hoping for autographs or a moment. So Eason loops over and signs for every one of them, takes selfies with everyone who asks, even breaks down the game a little.

This 23-year-old will happily talk hoops with almost anyone. Most of these young Rockets will. In a Game 5 that means plenty for the future of this franchise on the rise, they remind the league that they can play a little ball too. Amen Thompson, Alperen Şengün, Jalen Green, Jabari Smith Jr. and the rest of these young Rockets do what the Lakers of LeBron James and Luka Dončić can not. (With a healthy assist from GM Rafael Stone’s veteran additions of Fred VanVleet, Dillon Brooks and Steven Adams.) They refuse to be eliminated at home.

Instead, these Rockets push back and take the fight right out of the Golden State Warriors (at least their starters) for a night in a 131-116 win. You can almost see Amen Thompson steal the fight out of Golden State when he cleanly strips Steph Curry of the basketball and flies back down the other way for a slam that takes him into the crowd with one minute left in the first half.

Charles Dickens never dreamed up a pickpocket this dastardly and cunning. This is Thompson’s fifth swipe of the first half. Somewhere, Dora The Explorer is fainting. Şengün will rack up six assists in the half, playing 6-foot-11 point center, setting up a number of the jumpers that VanVleet (19 first half points) seeks out and wants.

These Rockets will not go out meekly. Forget that.

“Our guys are dogs,” is how Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta put it to PaperCity earlier this series. “They always fight.”

This is never more clear than in this Game 5. Down 3-1 in this best-of-seven series after two excruciating and increasingly frustrating close losses in San Francisco, these young Rockets found many already writing them off. Now, they head back to the Bay for a Friday night Game 6 (8 pm ESPN) that feels very much in play.

The Rockets have out played the Warriors of Curry, Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green for large stretches of this series. Pushed them around at times. Many of the matchups don’t favor Golden State. It is the championship knowhow that allowed Curry and Co. to build this series lead, but these young Rockets may be recalibrating on the fly, figuring out how to skip another step.

Who says this team that jumped from out of the playoffs to 52 wins needs to suffer a heartbreaking playoff series loss before it can win one?

Forget that?

“I mean nobody wants to go home,” Şengün says of this Game 5 stand. “That was a win-win game. There was no option for us to lose.”

“Our guys are dogs. They always fight.” — Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta

Some teams can be beaten down as they fall into a playoff hole. The Lakers have no one who seems interested in banging with Rudy Gobert in their own season-on-the-brink Game 5. So LeBron and Luka are done, already left to plan for next season.

Not these Rockets. They respond to their own moment on the brink with force. By pushing back together. If the Rockets lose this Game 5, everyone is talking about the possibility of going after Giannis Antetokounmpo this morning. Instead, there’s more sweet playoff basketball to obsess over. Maybe, a lot more if things break right.

“They love playing together as a team,” Tilman Fertitta tells PaperCity of this Rockets’ group.

Amen, Alpe and Jalen have kept that in play. Thompson finishes with 25 points, six rebounds, three assists, those five steals and three blocks, a stat line that only Hakeem Olajuwon (two times), University of Houston great Elvin Hayes, Charles Barkley and Rick Barry have ever put up in an NBA playoff game. Olajuwon and Hayes are both in the building to see it.

“Tough,” Thompson says, flashing a smile, when asked his reaction to that. “Being on any list with Hakeem obviously means a lot. Rick Berry too. But I still see Hakeem. He always shows love. So being on a list with him means a lot.”

The Dream and Shaking Off NBA Steps?

Hakeem Olajuwon lost his first career playoff series to Utah 3-2 back in the days of those best-of-five first round series. The Dream didn’t win his first championship until age 31. Amen Thompson is trying to win his first playoff series before he turns 23.

League history says it is not easy to skip steps in the NBA. This Rockets team just might be talented and determined enough to do it though. Together. Listen to these Rocket players talk about one another and you get a sense of what growing up together in the league has helped build already.

“Em steals,” Jalen Green says of Thompson’s open court thievery. “I’m running down the court facing the other way and the whole thing go the other way. I’m like how. . . all the steals was impressive for sure. Just him locking in defensively.”

Rockets coach Ime Udoka — the fourth member of this tight inner circle Rockets leadership team with Tilman Fertitta, Patrick Fertitta and Rafael Stone — says something interesting before the game. Udoka notes how sticking with the same starting lineup is a way to let guys get the experience of fighting through it. Can you win in the playoffs while continuing to develop a young team? This Rockets franchise is determined to try. Battle after battle.

The first last stand fight test is passed. Finished? Forget that.