Rockets avoid worst loss of season with rally from down 25 to win in OT

Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle

Jabari Smith Jr. doesn’t sweat the small stuff. The Houston Rockets’ third-year forward sat out 22 games this season with a broken hand and returned to find his starting spot had been given away. He preached humility and patience, willing to contribute off the bench to a Rockets team surging into second place in the Western Conference.

In a flip of the script Monday, after Smith propelled Houston’s second-half comeback against the Philadelphia 76ers, the Rockets stayed small with Smith at center while Alperen Şengün spent the entire fourth quarter on the bench — until there were 5.2 seconds left. With Smith at the line to shoot two free throws and the Rockets down three, Houston brought in Şengün and Steven Adams as rebounding reinforcements.

Smith made his first free throw and intentionally missed the second. While Adams boxed out two Sixers players, Şengün swooped in to grab the rebound and laid it in for the game-tying basket to force overtime in a game the Rockets once trailed by 25 points.

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It was far from perfect, but the Rockets matched the largest comeback win in franchise history with a 144-137 overtime victory against the tanking 76ers on Monday at Toyota Center, extending their win streak to a season-best seven games and closing out an undefeated homestand.

“I’m gonna go out swinging if anything. That’s kind of what everybody was thinking,” Smith said. “Whether we lose or win, we finna try to put a good effort out here and try to show some fight. We ain’t finna lay down. So we just kept fighting. Buckets started to come our way, and shots started to fall. We got some energy and some juice.”

Smith scored a season-high 30 points off the bench and shot 5-of-7 on 3s for the Rockets. Jalen Green also had 30 points with a career-high 13 assists. Şengün scored five of Houston’s 13 points in overtime and notched his third straight double-double, 13 points and 11 rebounds.

Smith said he hadn’t tried to intentionally miss a free throw in a game since he was in high school, but Rockets coach Ime Udoka called it “one of the best misses I’ve seen.”

“Jabari was huge. Obviously, too many contributions to talk about across the board, but he was big,” Udoka said. “And then Alpi coming in, playing when he didn’t play most of the second half. So Jabari was right there with everybody, but across the board, it was great job by everybody. Very resilient win.”

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Şengün had been on the bench since the 6:27 mark in the third quarter before he entered to get the game-tying tip-in.

“You know, that’s what I do,” he said. “It was a good position for me, and then just take care of it.”

Dillon Brooks added 25 points with five 3s for Houston. Tari Eason, who led all scorers with 18 first-half points, finished with 21 points and eight rebounds after he fouled out with four minutes left in regulation.

For the Sixers, University of Houston product Quentin Grimes scored a career-high 46 points with eight 3-pointers and 13 rebounds. Jared Butler added 21 points.

The Rockets (44-25) entered the game as the No. 2 seed in the West while the 76ers (23-45) arrived at Toyota Center with a stable of injured stars and just nine available players. You wouldn’t know it from the way the game started, with the makeshift Sixers unleashing a torrent of shots that put the Rockets back on their heels.

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Although Udoka praised his team for fighting back, he acknowledged the Rockets tend to play worse and get into holes against opponents with subpar records.

“I think it’s just a human nature and natural letdown when some guys are missing,” Udoka said. “We saw that against Brooklyn, Utah, some of those teams, but something is obviously going wrong there. I gotta do a better job of getting us prepared for these games. We can talk about it, but understanding that we rise to the level of our competition, we can’t play down to our level, either.”

The Rockets flipped a switch when they scored 45 points in the third quarter, led by 12 from Smith, 11 from Brooks and 10 from Green, to erase a 25-point deficit. The game was tied 102-102 at the start of the fourth quarter.

Eason fouled out with Houston down 122-115 in the fourth quarter and picked up a technical foul in the process. After the Sixers made three free throws, the Rockets trailed 125-115 with less than four minutes to go in regulation.

After Grimes missed a pair of free throws, Brooks’ 3-pointer pulled the Rockets within four points, 125-121, at the two-minute mark. But then Fred VanVleet, who’d replaced Eason, had his pull-up 3-pointer blocked by Oshae Brissett and fouled Brissett on the other end. After a review, officials upgraded the foul to a flagrant 2 and VanVleet was ejected for what referees said was an “unnecessary and excessive” windup before the foul.

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Udoka took issue with the no-call on VanVleet’s 3-pointer and didn’t think VanVleet’s foul on Brissett rose to the level of a flagrant 2.

“(VanVleet) grabbed his arm, but he hit him in the arm. Like, it’s nothing to the head,” Udoka said. “The 3 he got fouled on was — they didn’t look at that, didn’t call it, obviously. But it’s more of a flagrant than what he did.”

The Rockets didn’t quit. Smith buried his fourth 3-pointer of the game with 27.6 seconds left to make it a 3-point game, and after the Sixers made a pair of free throws Green scored a driving layup and then grabbed a steal to give the Rockets possession and 6.4 seconds to win it.

They managed to force overtime, where Şengün bulldozed his way inside to draw fouls and Smith and Green drained 3s. Şengün was 3-of-5 on free throws and scored five points with six rebounds in overtime as the Rockets outscored the Sixers 13-6.

It was in stark contrast to the start of the game. The Rockets’ defense was undisciplined and unenergetic. But even when the Rockets tightly contested shots and walled up in the post, the Sixers couldn’t miss.

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The Sixers scored 78 points in the first half, the most points the Rockets have allowed in a half this season. Philadelphia shot 61.7% from the field and 15-of-26 from deep, making nearly as many 3s as Houston did overall shots (21-of-51).

“Everything we’re about, that was the opposite,” Udoka said. “(They’re) a team that has a lot of guys missing, nothing to lose, and a bunch of guys trying to take advantage of their opportunity, and they came out with more urgency and toughness and everything than us.”

The Sixers pushed their lead as high as 25 points in the third quarter before the Rockets started retaliating from the perimeter. After shooting 5-of-21 on 3s in the first half, Houston shot 9-of-13 in the third quarter. Brooks made all three of his 3-pointers in the quarter.

Houston’s small-ball lineup including Smith and forward Jae’Sean Tate, with Green running point, was successful in the fourth quarter and cued multiple rallies. And Green said the experience of winning through an unconventional play and with different lineups is a confidence booster as the postseason draws near.

“It’s been a lot of different situations to win the game, whether it’s the clock or 3 fouling, stuff like that,” Green said. “So it’s good to learn and get the experience, especially going into the playoffs where we’re trying to be.”

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Rockets avoid worst loss of season with rally from down 25 to win in OT

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