The Orlando Magic lost in seven games in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. One day later, Magic head coach Jamahl Mosley was fired. The Houston Rockets lost in six games in the first round of the NBA playoffs. Nine days later, Rockets head coach Ime Udoka remains in place. Is Udoka already safe for the Rockets’ uncertain offseason?
Will The Rockets’ Head Coach Decision Cost Them Next Season?
Udoka has been the Rockets’ head coach since the 2023-24 season. In his three seasons, he has accrued a record of 145-101. He’s made the playoffs twice and has gone 5-8, failing to advance past the first round in either season.
Mosley was the Orlando Magic head coach from 2021-22 to 2025-26. In that time, he achieved a record of just 189-221. However, crucially, he oversaw the Magic rebuild. In his first season, the team went 22-60. In his last three, the team went 133-113 and made the playoffs each time. Similar to Udoka, though, a lack of adjustments reared its head in the playoffs. The team failed to advance past the first round.
Defense Versus Offense
What’s interesting about the two coaches is their stylistic similarity. In particular, both coaches built a culture that put total faith in the defensive side of the ball. Meanwhile, on offense, things got ugly. In particular, both coaches overindulged in isolation basketball relative to their team’s abilities. The Rockets were sixth in isolation frequency in 2025-26 despite being fifteenth in points per possession. Meanwhile, the Magic were seventeenth in frequency, but had the fourth-lowest points per possession.
Additionally, the three-point lines in Houston and Orlando were pointedly deprioritized. In 2025-26, the Magic attempted the ninth-fewest threes per game in the league. The Rockets attempted the third fewest. As if to catch up, the Magic shot the third-worst three-point percentage. The result was that the two teams had the sixth and seventh fewest made threes per game.
Now, undoubtedly, the Rockets’ and Magic’s three-point woes weren’t all on their coaches. But the Rockets added historic scorer Kevin Durant this season, and gave more minutes to young sharpshooter Reed Sheppard. Yet, since last season, they actually dropped in three-pointers made per game from 12.7 to 11.5.
Also, Udoka, in particular, is suspected to have influenced his team’s roster decisions since he arrived. He pushed for Fred VanVleet over James Harden for 2023-24. When Harden goes 3 of 13 and lets a playoff opponent light him up, that looks like a good call. When he goes 8 of 14 with multiple clutch buckets down the stretch, it looks like a missed opportunity. But such is the duality of Harden, as many Rockets fans will well remember.
More recent moves to appease Udoka have less going for them. Given his preference for defensively oriented players, it’s likely he had a hand in acquiring Clint Capela, Josh Okogie, and Dorian Finney-Smith for 2025-26. In the playoffs, those players had offensive box plus/minus stats of -3.0, -2.9, and -9.7, respectively.
Why Rockets’ Head Coach Is Still Around
Udoka does have a few things in his favor to help explain why he’s still around, and Mosley isn’t. Not only is Udoka’s record in the past three years better overall, but it’s been achieved in a generally harder conference. He’s had back-to-back 50-win seasons and made it to the second seed.
Also, while the Magic’s 12th-worst offensive rating in 2025-26 was actually their highest rating in the Mosley era, the Rockets have fared considerably better. That’s because Udoka at least had an established offensive identity to fall back on. That identity was hoping the ball would fall back into the hands of one of his players after a miss. The Udoka-era offensive rating has been consistently carried by the Rockets’ absurd offensive rebounding. It’s a convenient strategy for Udoka, who relishes the imposing defensive potential of double big lineups.
The Magic have had their own cadre of big men to work with, with Mosley at the helm. They also have oversized perimeter players like Franz Wagner and Jalen Suggs. Even so, the team has consistently underperformed on the glass. This season, the Magic were 19th in rebounds per game, while the Rockets were first. An undersized starting center in Wendell Carter Jr. may have been part of the issue. There’s also the fact that Wagner, Suggs, and much of the Magic’s big man depth struggled with injury issues this season.
As for the Rockets, injury issues may have done more than anything to keep Udoka in place. After all, it’s hard to blame Udoka for underperforming when Durant, the star offseason acquisition, only played one of six playoff games. Udoka was quick to point out the importance of the injured VanVleet in his post-elimination presser as well. Even so, the decision to keep him in place feels like staving off the inevitable.
Is Rockets Head Coach The Right Man For The Job?
Udoka’s finals run with the Boston Celtics in 2021-22 may allay some concerns about his suitability for postseason basketball. Even in 2025-26, Udoka was able to keep his team fighting after a demoralizing (and ultimately fatal) 0-3 start. But there’s a general trend for culture-changing coaches to get out-boxed in the playoffs and replaced by those with better Xs and Os. The Oklahoma City Thunder’s Mark Daigneault seems like the rare exception due to OKC’s remarkable roster building and reinvention of NBA defense.
Mark Jackson famously changed the Golden State Warriors’ culture. To get over the hump, they had to move on to Steve Kerr. It arguably happened to Udoka already when he took the Celtics to the finals, only for Joe Mazzulla to finish the job two seasons later. The Magic will hope that moving on from Mosley will net them similar results. The Rockets will seemingly try again next season with their culture changer still in place. Who knows? Maybe they can change the culture on culture-changing coaches changeover.
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