Tonight is another game that is probably in front of a sold out arena excited to see their former star Kevin Durant.
While the Houston Rockets will not have their ace closer tonight against the Golden State Warriors, this game still has stakes. These teams, of course, played a 7-game first round series last time. The Warriors prevailed behind wins in Games 1 and 7 in Houston. You could easily look at that series as the incident that caused Rafael Stone to act after three years of mostly standing pat and focusing on the draft.
The game also matters for the NBA Cup. For Houston to advance, they need to win tonight and would need to win tonight by a lot of points and get help elsewhere on Friday. Suffice to say, the Rockets almost certainly won’t be playing in Las Vegas.
Houston will be without five players that figured to be rotation players this season. Besides the normal Fred VanVleet absence (so ubiquitous that I’m not writing it in the injury report section) and Definitely Fictional Signing (who apparently exists), the Rockets will be without Tari Eason, Kevin Durant, and Steven Adams. The Wariors are also down a few pieces.
The good news for Houston is that after tonight, they’ll have three days off before playing their first back-to-back of the season, with both games taking place in Utah.
Dorian Finney-Smith: OUT (ankle)
Kevin Durant: OUT (personal)
Steven Adams: OUT (ankle)
The Line (as of this post)
Looking ahead because we can
Sunday afternoon on the road against the Utah Jazz