OPINION: Takeaways from Rockets’ opening night loss vs. Thunder in double overtime

The Houston Rockets had a bittersweet start to the 2025-26 NBA season, going toe-to-toe with the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder before ultimately coming up short in a game that took two overtimes to sort out.

GAME RECAP: Rockets fall to reigning champion Thunder in double overtime heartbreaker on opening night, 125-124

Despite the unpleasant 125-124 outcome, we learned a lot about the squad we will see take the floor for 81 more games — and hopefully a lot more after that.

Here’s what we learned:

The ultra-tall lineup was fun, but the Rockets are clearly missing Fred VanVleet

In abject defiance of the small-ball lineup the Rockets utilized in the Mike D’Antoni era, Houston started this season with a super tall starting five. The cast of Amen Thompson, Kevin Durant, Jabari Smith Jr., Steven Adams, Alperen Sengun has an average height of roughly 6′10″.

As fun as this lineup was from its sheer uniqueness, it made for some ugly moments. The five Rockets shot a combined 7-for-25 (28%) from three-point range, and that figure could’ve been even harder to look at without Sengun — who has been far from a sharpshooter up to this point in his young career — making five of his eight attempts.

It felt like the team was missing point guard Fred VanVleet, who tore his ACL last month after signing a team-friendly extension earlier in the offseason. Standing at just 6′0″, he wouldn’t have been helpful for the starters’ height average last night, but his speed and playmaking ability can create spacing that the current iteration of the Rockets clearly missed last night.

Reed Sheppard struggled in his sophomore season debut

With VanVleet sidelined for the foreseeable future, second-year point guard Reed Sheppard has now been thrust into a bigger role in the backcourt rotation than he held as a rookie.

The 21-year-old played 28 minutes last night — getting the most playing time of anyone on the Rockets’ bench. The results weren’t terrible, but they were somewhat concerning.

Sheppard scored nine points and took 11 shots, adding four assists and a pair of rebounds. That isn’t an awful offensive showing by any measure, but on defense, the Thunder treated him like a minnow in a shark tank.

OKC drew up multiple plays intended force Sheppard into isolation with their taller and stronger guards. Targeting Reed proved to be a successful strategy, as multiple Thunder players got clean looks inside after driving through him.

Alperen Sengun and Kevin Durant are absolute cinema

The Rockets’ two reigning All Stars have been handed the keys to the bulk of Houston’s offense, and they came to play last night.

The first half was all KD, as he led the team in points at the break with 14. In the locker room, though, Sengun seemingly said, “I’ll take it from here.” He finished with 39 total points, 29 of which came in the second half and overtime.

As I touched on earlier, Sengun was also Houston’s lone bright spot from three-point range. It might be fresh to expect a 62.5% mark from deep every night, but it’s safe to assume AlPi worked on his jumper over the summer. This has been a key area of improvement in his development, and it’s exciting to think about this team’s spacing potential if Sengun develops a Nikola Jokic-like touch from deep.

NON-ROCKETS TAKE: The NBA returned to NBC for the first time in more than two decades, and it was sensational

I know — small sample size — but the broadcast for last night’s game was electric. NBC had big shoes to fill in its return to NBA coverage, and through one night, it has delivered.

First off, the new NBC score-bug is terrific. It didn’t try to do too much but also didn’t fall into the trap of minimalism that so many brands have found themselves married to in 2025.

The NBA on NBC added icons after dunks and three-pointers