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Last Saturday, Alston scored 20 points, then faced off at midcourt with New Orleans big man Tyson Chandler after Houston beat the Hornets 106-96.
Houston has won 19 consecutive games and, not coincidentally, Alston is playing the best basketball of his career and growing more confident with each victory. A 6-2 point guard, he has averaged 15 points and seven assists and shot 45-for-115 from 3-point range (39 percent) during the victory streak, the third-longest in NBA history.
Alston and the Rockets will go for their 20th straight win in Atlanta tonight.
“I hope he doesn’t turn it off,” Rockets star Tracy McGrady said. “I love the way he’s playing. He’s a real fierce competitor right now. He’s knocking down the outside shot, he’s penetrating. He’s doing it all.”
Alston has come a long way since the preseason, when he wasn’t even sure the Rockets wanted to keep him.
Houston drafted Aaron Brooks, then brought in Steve Francis and Mike James, creating a crowded competition. Alston accepted the challenge, quietly believing that he was the best match for coach Rick Adelman’s offensive system.
“Even from the start, I knew it would be a good fit for me,” Alston said. “I can be a playmaker at times; I can be a scorer at times. It made me more involved. I’m a weapon in it.”
Early in the season, Alston split minutes with James and Francis as Adelman searched for the right man to run the offense. Francis suffered a season-ending quadriceps injury, James was traded and Brooks was relegated to a reserve role, leaving the responsibility to Alston.
“Now, he’s playing at a very high level, and that’s what we need,” Adelman said. “We need him to have a level like this.”
He’s raised his game even higher in the seven games since All-Star center Yao Ming went out with a season-ending foot injury, averaging 17 points and five assists per game.
Last weekend, former Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy, now a television analyst, said Alston is playing as well as any point guard in the league. Alston just happened to be watching.
“I was so shocked,” Alston said. “I’m like, ‘I can’t believe that he mentioned my name in the same breath as Steve Nash.’”
McGrady doesn’t think it’s that much of a stretch.
“He’s played like an All-Star,” McGrady said. “He’s played like one of the better point guards in this league. I put him up there with the best of them. His production and his leadership have just been phenomenal.”
Alston has 129 assists with only 39 turnovers during the Rockets’ streak. He’s improved the arc on his 3-point shots and has hit at least three in nine of the 19 games. He’s also worked on perfecting a one-handed “teardrop” shot and seems to toss in a few each game.
“This game has a lot to do with the rhythm you’re in,” he said, “and right now, I feel like I’m in a great rhythm.”
The way he’s playing reminds him of his best days growing up on the concrete courts in New York City. Lately, he’s unleashed some of the trash talk that was part of the culture back then, but the other Rockets have told him to keep quiet for the sake of the team.
“That’s one thing I’ve always listened to them about,” he said. “Even though I’m competing, I’m doing the things I did in New York. But they say, ‘Tone it down. Let’s go win the game.’”
If that’s all it takes to keep the Rockets rolling, Alston is willing to do it.
With Monday’s win over New Jersey, Houston moved within one game of the San Antonio Spurs and the Los Angeles Lakers for the top seed in the tightly packed Western Conference. But even with the streak, the Rockets entered Tuesday only four games ahead of the No. 9 spot.
“If you lose a couple of games in a row, you know where that could put you,” he said. “If you continue to keep winning, you remain at the top of the division and the conference. And we don’t have Yao. So my level of play not only has to go up - I have to sustain it for a long period of time.”