There go the Houston Rockets, doing that thing where they make us hope once again that they\u2019ve figured things out.<\/p>\n
If you think the Rockets have had a nightmare season, look at the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks dealt with Giannis Antetokounmpo trade rumors in the offseason, then again during the season, then again again during the season. It\u2019s become a further nightmare because Giannis clearly does not want to \u201cdemand\u201d a trade and ruin his reputation in Milwaukee. However, he\u2019s basically done just that and holding the franchise hostage hasn\u2019t benefitted anyone. Meanwhile, Bucks fans (understandably) love him to pieces and don\u2019t want him traded even if the return was outstanding (it will not be). Because they expected Giannis back from injury, the Bucks went full-go while he was out, but they just weren\u2019t good enough. That means that they\u2019re probably not drafting in the top 6 this year even though that\u2019s where the talent seems to be.<\/p>\n
Giannis hasn\u2019t played since March 15 despite his best efforts. The Bucks would love nothing more than to lose every game and move into ninth in the lottery odds. Unfortunately for them, they just played fellow tankers the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavs didn\u2019t have a starter shoot better than 33%. Yes, for real. Rockets murderer Max Christie shot 1-12. I really hate when guys always go off against the Rockets but turn into pumpkins for the other 78-80 games of the year.<\/p>\n
Speaking of tanking and the lottery, I will be doing my annual \u201cIf the lottery is rigged, who wins\u201d post for Friday\u2019s preview. It should be a good time.<\/p>\n
For tonight, suffice to say that both teams are on a back-to-back, and Milwaukee had to fly in after their game. Houston needs to get out to a good start because the Bucks want to lose this one. It could be a sloppy game overall, especially since Ime Udoka left his starters (and Reed Sheppard) at or past their normal minutes level against New York to prevent another collapse against the Knickerbockers. And it worked. So it\u2019s clear that the Rockets viewed last night\u2019s game as worth going all-in for and tonight\u2019s game would be more up for grabs.<\/p>\n
Also, Dorian Finney-Smith didn\u2019t play last night. He\u2019s missed the last two games as DNP-CD, and the previous two games he played a combined 13 minutes and 56 seconds. Methinks if this isn\u2019t the game for DFS, then he might get DFA\u2019d.<\/p>\n
Giannis Antetokounmpo: GTD<\/p>\n
The Line (as of this post)<\/p>\n
Looking ahead because we can<\/p>\n
Friday night at home against the Utah Jazz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There go the Houston Rockets, doing that thing where they make us hope once again that they\u2019ve figured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57,6330],"class_list":{"0":"post-230219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-houston","9":"tag-houston-headlines","10":"tag-houston-news","11":"tag-rockets-game-previews"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}