Houston Rockets vs San Antonio Spurs: Can Houston get a win on the road?

The Houston Rockets will try to break a four game losing streak and get a win against the Spurs in San Antonio, a city they haven’t played well in recently.

We’re just a quarter of the way through the year, but the Houston Rockets are on their second four game losing streak of the season.

The Rockets have dropped games against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Dallas Mavericks, two teams that are in different stages of a rebuild. Houston also lost to the Wizards, a team whose early season performance has been surprisingly underwhelming.

On Friday night, the Rockets will try to break their losing ways against the Spurs. San Antonio defeated Houston 96-89 in AT&T Center on Nov 10. The Spurs have also defeated the Rockets in seven of their last nine meetings in San Antonio.

Fortunately for the Rockets, there’s a chance Chris Paul could play. Paul, along with Gerald Green and Nene are listed as questionable. Paul and Green’s absences over the last few games has exposed Houston’s lack of depth. Without the two guards, the Rockets have relied on a call up from the G-League and two undrafted rookies as the main pieces off of the bench. Not exactly ideal for a team that wants to make a run at a championship after falling just steps away from the Finals last May.

Houston is 0-5 without Paul, proving that even after a slow start, CP3’s value to this team can’t be measured. The Rockets are 8-4 when both James Harden and Chris Paul are in the lineup.

Luckily for the Rockets, the Spurs have also gotten off to a slow start. San Antonio is just 10-11, which is a bad record for a franchise that seemingly prints out 50 win seasons every single year.

Houston’s offense has regained its swagger, but their defense has completely fallen apart again. The Rockets have somehow managed to give up 124 points per game over this four-game losing streak. They’re giving up too many driving lanes, wide open 3-pointers and there seems to be a miscommunication on defense on every other possession.

Not to mention, the Rockets are only grabbing 29.6 defensive rebounds per game, the fewest in the NBA. Houston usually can’t stop the other team from scoring, but when they do, their opponents are getting too many second chances.