The Rockets look to finish the season at .500
No matter what happens tonight, the season has been a success for the Houston Rockets. After three seasons hovering around the 20-win mark, Houston has established themselves as a 40-win squad. Ime Udoka and the veterans acquired in free agency have helped to take this young core to the next level. Alperen Sengun and Jalen Green have takes steps forward, even with the uncertainty heading into their extension summer. Jabari Smith Jr. has found his niche. And Cam Whitmore and Amen Thompson have both shown more than enough to be considered great rookies with bright futures.
I think if the Rockets had lost Friday night, Udoka might have packed things up and shut the veterans down. He might have played some of the younger players for a quarter or two, and then leaned heavily on the Nates and Jermaine Samuels Jr. Instead, Houston’s win in Portland has set up a shot at .500. That seemed impossible when this team was 27-35, but here we are.
There is nothing at stake today for the Los Angeles Clippers. They are locked in as the four seed, and they will face the Dallas Mavericks in the first round. They cannot help or hurt their seeding in this game, so they will likely play their bench as they have over the past few games. The Rockets had trouble with bench players in Memphis before the All-Star break and in Utah on Thursday, but took care of business on Friday. So it won’t be an easy win even if the Clippers don’t play their stars at all, and there’s always the possibility that they get a bit of run to keep them fresh.
For Houston, Jalen will be playing in his 82nd game of the season, a first for him in his young career.
As this is the last preview of the season, I wanted to thank everyone for reading this season. It’s obviously been a much more fun ride than the previous three seasons, and I’ve enjoyed getting to talk more about the Rockets rather than just typing out “they need to develop the young guys” and reciting lottery odds for every preview. Here’s to not caring about the lottery for a long time (other than keeping tabs on the Brooklyn Nets).
Extra thanks go to Darren, for giving me the slack to write the previews how I want. The day that this starts to feel like a job is the day I’ll stop. And a shoutout to Xiane, who’s been a steady presence at TDS (he’s the only one that pre-dates me here) and has been so fun to talk to on the Playback streams. I can’t wait to watch some more with you next season, friend.
Tip-off
2:30pm CT
How To Watch
Space City Home Network or Playback TV
Injury Report
Rockets
Alperen Sengun-OUT
Jae’Sean Tate-OUT
Fred VanVleet-GTD
Clippers
Kawhi Leonard-GTD
The Line (as of this post)
Looking ahead because we can
The NBA Draft Lottery on May 12