Rockets Looking To Earn Home Court Advantage With Home Stretch

The Houston Rockets are playing their longest remaining homestand. During the stretch, the Rockets can gather some victories against less competitive teams. Houston is sitting at the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference, but it hasn't made significant headway towards the top of the standings. Even through two separate losing streaks, the Rockets are still just one game behind getting back into the fourth seed, and just two games from vaulting all the way back into the No. 2 spot.

To begin their climb, the Rockets are looking for quality performances against teams that occupy the 10th and 11th seeds in both the East and the West.

Houston will first see the West's 11th seed in a matchup against the Phoenix Suns. The Suns have had a disappointing season following their difficult sweep defeat last postseason. The chemistry between their three stars never improved, even when the individual performance was still elite. Phoenix hasn't been the same this year, and the team is at risk of missing postseason play entirely if it doesn't make the Play-In Tournament.

However, the state of the West's 10th seed gives the Suns hope for a late run to earn a postseason spot. The Dallas Mavericks are treading water after potentially losing their star players for the rest of the season.

The Rockets face Dallas just a few days after playing Phoenix, as both teams might be more motivated in their respective campaigns for the No. 10 seed. Houston's next few games are against Eastern Conference teams in the same spots, but the dynamic is slightly different.

The Chicago Bulls come to town for Houston's fifth-straight home game. The Bulls have struggled this season, losing two franchise cornerstones with Zach Lavine and DeMar DeRozan going to the Sacramento Kings. The remaining players have willed the team to a Play-In position, but Chicago still has a losing record and has work to do before catching the Miami Heat in the standings.

Chicago is more likely to catch Miami than the Philadelphia 76ers are to steal the tenth seed from the Bulls, and Houston will play both teams back-to-back.

Philadelphia has had a difficult season, far from the team's hope when it signed Paul George to a lucrative contract to pair with Joel Embiid and a newly emerged Tyrese Maxey. Things changed again when rookie Jared McCain started to show flashes.

However, everything went wrong for the 76ers with injuries, poor play, and failure to create momentum. Philadelphia is 4.5 games behind the Bulls for the tenth seed, and it might be closer to giving up on the season than to seriously competing for a postseason berth.

Each of these games is against teams the Rockets can feasibly beat. The Rockets perform better overall, and their record reflects their success this season. However, they aren't unbeatable and have dropped games against lesser opponents in prior games. The team can't afford to continue that trend if Houston hopes to overtake teams with better records and more postseason experience.

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