Houston Rockets vs. Phoenix Suns game preview

Houston welcomes a team with two stars to Toyota Center

The All-Star break is almost upon us, but before the Houston Rockets can enjoy the fruits of their labors and get healthy, they have another back-to-back. Tonight’s game sees Houston take on the Phoenix Suns while tomorrow night’s game will feature the Golden State Warriors.

Rockets fans are obviously familiar with the Suns and their two superstars, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. Houston traded away a couple of guaranteed-to-be-good-but-not-necessarily-great picks back to the Brooklyn Nets in order to control Phoenix’s upcoming drafts. Obviously, the hope was that if or when Phoenix decides to blow up their current squad and rebuild, they will come to Houston first since the Rockets control their ability to tank. So far, Mat Ishbia hasn’t wanted to play that game with Booker, who is clearly the apple of Houston’s eye more so than the older (but still awesome) Durant. Phoenix quietly, and then not-so-quietly, held talks with Golden State and others about trading Durant without his knowledge. They tried for months to trade Bradley Beal, who has a no-trade clause and wasn’t interested in helping Phoenix. They traded Jusuf Nurkic, who became the easy scapegoat since Durant and Beal are stars.

That’s led to what has to be a tense locker room. Phoenix will almost certainly have to make a major change this offseason. For now, they’re hovering around .500 and trying to get into the play-in. Going into their game last night against Memphis, the Suns were 24-15 with Durant and 2-11 without him. So, that makes them a 50-win team with Durant and a 13-win team without him. For reference, Houston is on a 51-win pace. The difference is that the Suns are likely to have Durant tonight and Houston is unlikely to have three starters. It’s not who you play, it’s when you play them.

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

7:30pm CT

How To Watch

Space City Home Network and Playback

Injury Report

Rockets

Jabari Smith Jr.: OUT

Fred VanVleet: OUT

Alperen Sengun: ???

Cody Zeller: GTD

Suns

Bradley Beal: GTD

Grayson Allen: GTD

Cody Martin: OUT

The Line (as of this post)

N/A

Check here for updates

Looking ahead because we can

Tomorrow night in Houston against the Golden State Warriors