The Rockets once again try to regain their footing.
Tonight marks the Houston Rockets’ fifth and final back-to-back against the same opponent of the season. Unlike most of the others, this one is more traditional in that tonight’s game is in New Orleans and Saturday’s game is in Houston.
The New Orleans Pelicans got hit with the injury bug early in the season and it hasn’t really let up. Houston’s previous opponent, the Indiana Pacers, have had supreme injury luck, only losing 12 games to their top 4 players. New Orleans has (or really, had) five players averaging over 30 minutes per night. All of them have missed more than 12 games. In total, they’ve averaged about 27 missed games. And that doesn’t include Zion Williamson, who has missed 38 games this season.
I get that Zion has been injury prone, but New Orleans got hit with a laundry list of injuries that even the best and deepest teams would struggle to handle. The Pels won 49 games and were the 8 seed last season. They added Dejounte Murray and were hoping for more Zion. If things had gone to plan, they’re probably fighting for home court advantage in the first round. Instead, they traded away Brandon Ingram and are probably open for business. Still, they’re 5-5 in their last 10 including wins over the Kings, Suns, and Jazz. Houston is a combined 1-4 against those three teams, for what it’s worth.
We’ll be in the Playback room tonight, so you should come join to watch the Rockets and talk about the game. Remember, we get a handful of VIP passes that we give out to anyone who wants to watch the game. No League Pass necessary!
Tip-off
7pm CT
How To Watch
Space City Home Network and Playback
Injury Report
Rockets
Fred VanVleet: GTD
Pacers
Brandon Boston: GTD
The Line (as of this post)
Hou -5.5
Check here for updates
Looking ahead because we can
Saturday night in Houston against the New Orleans Pelicans
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