Houston Rockets: Fans should keep a side eye on ‘play-in’ game

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 29: James Harden #13 of the Houston Rockets (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 29: James Harden #13 of the Houston Rockets (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) /
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The Houston Rockets are right at the finish line after an amazingly eventful season.  It’s Game No. 82 and they’ll be facing the Sacramento Kings tonight.  Although this game is virtually meaningless and the starters will not likely play at all, there’s another game that you should focus your attention to.  Let’s take a look.

Houston Rockets fans — can you believe it?  This team has gone through a historic season to where they’ve clinched the most wins in franchise history, three double-digit win streaks in that same span and some amazing offense and notable defense to boot.

This team is complete on all levels and is primed to go the distance as the new season — the NBA playoffs — will commence starting this weekend.  I absolutely love the postseason in professional basketball because it typically brings the best out of any team competing, despite however they may have finished to close out the season.

A new fire is ignited and one only hopes that there’s upsets that occur throughout the occurrence of such a terrific exhibition of competition.  The Houston Rockets aren’t playing around this year and if they don’t qualify for the NBA Finals, I would consider this season a disappointment.  There’s just so much this team has done on such a rare level, one wonders if this would ever happen again the same way it did this year.

You know what that proves? That this team is special and they will be locomotive more than likely

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barreling through their opponents.  Watch for the train down that aisle!

But anyway, as you may have known, the final seed for the Western Conference hasn’t been decided and will come down to both teams — the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets — compete for the final spot tonight.  The Wolves currently hold the No. 8 seed but if the Nugs win tonight, they’ll leapfrog their opponent and clinch a bid for the playoffs.  The winner tonight determines who the Houston Rockets will face in the first round.

The Wolves have the longest drought without a postseason bid with the current streak at 14 seasons missing the playoffs.  The Nuggets have qualified more recently with their drought at five seasons.  This, of course, should be extra motivation for the T-Wolves to go out there and earn that spot.

The T-Wolves have been exciting to watch with the likes of a front of Karl-Anthony Towns, Jimmy Butler as well as Taj Gibson manning the front line with Jeff Teague being the ball distributor while the Nuggets have overachieved with the likes of Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic leading the team.  Both teams sit at 46-35 so there will literally be no tomorrow.

Next: Best and worst case scenario for Rockets 1st round match up

Tonight’s match up is scheduled for 7 p.m. CDT as this will be a home game for the T-Wolves but this game isn’t scheduled to be on national television.  It’s Wednesday night so ESPN does the heavy-lifting during NBA coverage.  I’m positive they’ll be doing live look-ins of the game as well as NBA TV doing the same with their in-depth analysis of their on-air talent.

We’ll have to see but keep that side-eye out, even it may not matter too much!  The seeing is more than likely to come down to this game.

Go Rockets.