Time Is Running Out for the Rockets to Move up in the Standings

The Houston Rockets come into their matchup with the New York Knicks looking to continue their recent momentum. They finished off their four-game road trip with two straight wins after dropping the first two games to the Chicago Bulls and the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Rockets were hoping for better results on the road trip, especially after their two devastating losses to the Los Angeles Lakers, which gave the Lakers a three-game lead in the loss column and the all-important tiebreaker.

Now the Rockets return to the Toyota Center on Tuesday to face the Knicks with only eight games left in the season. The one positive is that the Rockets will play six of the final eight at home, with the two road games being at Golden State and at Phoenix, which will be the Rockets' last road trip of the regular season.

With only eight games left, the Rockets' chances of moving up the standings are getting slimmer by the day. The Rockets dont control their own destiny when it comes to the third and fourth seeds, but can still move ahead of the Timberwolves and win the season series.

The Rockets Will Need Help to Move up Past the Fifth Seed

With the Rockets' recent losses to the Lakers and Denver Nuggets, the Rockets would need both teams to lose multiple games to end the regular season.

The Rockets trail the Lakers by three games in the loss column and, by losing the tiebreaker, would have to win one more game than the Lakers, so in essence, they trail by four games.

The Rockets also lost the tiebreaker to the Nuggets and are one game back in the loss column, but, again, would have to win one more game than the Nuggets, so really two games behind.

The Rockets do have one more game against the Timberwolves to determine that tie breaker, so they can still move ahead of Minnesota even if both teams win the rest of their games.

The other issue, however, is that the teams directly in front of them, especially the Lakers and Nuggets, are on six-game and three-game winning streaks, which have kept them in the top four seeds.

Ideally, if you are the Rockets, if you had to play a team in the first round, it would be the Lakers or Timberwolves, even though none of the matchups would be easy, especially if you are starting on the road.

With each game, the Rockets' margin for error is getting smaller and smaller if they want home-court advantage in the first round, and at this point, they can't let any more winnable games slip through their fingers.