As rookie Jalen Green was wrapping up his pregame shootaround, the small crowd in attendance who showed up early for Friday’s Houston Rockets contest versus the Miami Heat began to cheer when a familiar face that had not been seen in a while came walking out of the tunnel.
Second-year Rockets forward Jae’Sean Tate made sure to return the love he was receiving, as he waived to the Toyota Center crowd before being handed a basketball to begin his drills.
It was the first time that Tate had been seen in a Rockets uniform in over eight days, having played his last game on Dec. 23 at Indiana.
After that game, Tate and forward KJ Martin (who also returned on Friday) and guards DJ Augustin and Garrison Mathews were all placed in the NBA’s health and safety protocol due to COVID-19 related issues.
After the game, Tate revealed to the media what he did while recovering from COVID-related symptoms:
It was relaxing at first, and then it got boring real fast. Those first couple days, I used it for my body to recover. You start to feel how sore you really are.
By day three, you’re just looking at TV all day, and you’re just ready to do what you love. They called me earlier today and said that they had changed the rules, and (asked) would I be ready to suit up. I was like, ‘Heck, yeah.’
Rockets forward Jae’Sean Tate, who had been away from the team for over eight days due to being placed in the NBA’s health and safety protocol talks about when he felt his game starting to come back against the Miami Heat on Friday. #Rockets #LightTheFuse #Sarge pic.twitter.com/npEEfV7cU5
— BIG SARGE MEDIA LLC (@BigSargeSportz) January 1, 2022
Instead of placing him in his usual starting role, Rockets head coach Stephen Silas decided to bring Tate off the bench Friday to help him get reacclimated to being back on the court and test his conditioning.
“I was concerned, obviously, because I didn’t start him, but I didn’t know what we were going to get from him,” Silas said after the game.
Tate scored a team-high 22 points in the 25 minutes he was on the court in Houston’s 120-110 defeat to the Heat, and he made 9-of-15 shots (60%) from the field. He admitted to shaking some of the rust off due to not playing for so long. One thing that seemed to fire up the former All-Rookie First Team player was the on-the-court battle and trash-talking going on between Tate and Heat superstar Jimmy Butler.
“I love that he is a competitor,” Tate said postgame. “He is a guy who has a love for the game and love for the competition. He works extremely hard. Any player that likes to compete, I am a fan of. It was a little bitter tonight, but at the end of the day, it was a great game.”
Tate won’t have a long time to recover, as the Denver Nuggets will make their way to Toyota Center on Saturday. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. CST.
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