It has taken fewer than three weeks for the Rockets to transition from darlings of the Western Conference to experiencing a calamitous collapse that has them tumbling down the standings.
With their 116-105 road loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday, the Rockets’ skid reached six games. In that span, Houston went from holding the second seed in the West to falling behind the Memphis Grizzlies and Denver Nuggets and into a tie with — and technically percentage points behind — the Los Angeles Lakers for the fourth seed and homecourt advantage in the first round of the NBA postseason.
The Rockets will host the Toronto Raptors on Sunday in desperate need of a win. The positive momentum Houston generated with three consecutive victories over the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics late last month has vanished amid several injuries that have contributed to the onslaught of losses. The Rockets initially survived the loss of Jabari Smith Jr. (hand), but the combination of Alperen Sengun (calf) and Fred VanVleet (ankle) also sitting proved debilitating.
Sengun missed the first three games of the skid and, despite averaging 23.3 points and 12.7 rebounds since his return to the starting lineup, the first-time All-Star has been unable to stem the tide. VanVleet missed his fourth consecutive game on Saturday and the Rockets’ ball security has suffered in his absence. Amen Thompson has committed 15 turnovers assuming a share of the controls on offense in those four games.
Thompson was named Western Conference Defensive Player of the Month for January. But his workload, and that of others, has increased with the rash of injuries.
“The injuries have hit us more than guys being tired,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “Everybody is going to be tired, both teams on the floor; it’s that time of year.
“You miss Alpi for those three games and obviously Fred is probably our most important player as far as getting us organized and getting everybody set into their spaces and calming everything down when things are going awry a little bit. That would be more (of a factor) than actual guys on the court because everybody is feeling that.”
The Raptors opened a three-game road trip with a 121-109 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday, their fourth loss in five games following a season-best five-game winning streak.
With RJ Barrett (concussion), Jakob Poeltl (hip) and Brandon Ingram (ankle) — acquired from the New Orleans Pelicans at the trade deadline — all unavailable against the Thunder, the Raptors featured four rookies (Jamison Battle, Jonathan Mogbo, Jamal Shead and Ja’Kobe Walter) and second-year guard Gradey Dick in their 10-man rotation. That leaves the Raptors, now 20 games below .500, leaning heavily into player development in the near term.
“It’s really focus on a lot of young guys that are now getting extended minutes,” Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic said. “There are small things that we’re striving for. There are a lot of small details that we’re trying to work on just like focusing on our improvement.
“It comes in really handy that we’re playing against some really good teams because that’s going to help us to play extremely hard and use those things.”
