One Glaring Issue Kept Houston Behind in the Standings All Season Long

(© Troy Taormina | 2025 Nov 16)

Throughout the 2025-2026 season, the Houston Rockets had their fair share of struggles. Free throws and three point shooting were obvious areas that needed improvement, but those also carried over to impact another part of the game too.

Ime Udoka and his team only managed to win one single overtime game, despite playing in the second most extra periods in the league. Only the Denver Nuggets had more OT games, per StatMuse.

As if a one in eight record wasn’t bad enough, that single OT victory came all the way back on November 16th, 2025. Check out the Roundtable review of this game against Orlando a week and a half before Thanksgiving.

We’re now closer to the start of next season than we are to the Houston Rockets’ last overtime victory. Just throwing games away in the clutch whenever they got the opportunity.

While there’s plenty of questions swirling around, people pondering whether Ime Udoka should be on the hotseat is definitely one of the biggest. I went further in depth about this here on Roundtable.

I still don’t know if he’s had fireable offenses in Houston, and apparently he’s making too much money to get fired anyways. This is why I still think it’d be in everyone’s best interest to bring in some assistants who can be more creative on the offensive side.

Simply bringing back a smaller guard who’s now a year older and coming back from an ACL injury isn’t enough to solve their problems. I love Fred VanVleet, but I think the team could also benefit from some actual coaching in clutch situations.