Rockets lead league in back-to-backs played and won

After disrupting Mardi Gras by laying a 30-point win on the New Orleans Pelicans last night, what’s the best the Rockets could do for themselves? Play again tonight!

Why?

The Rockets lead the NBA in wins on the second night of a back-to-back.

The Rockets share the NBA lead in total games played. The Rockets share the NBA lead in back-to-backs played. The Rockets are top five in the NBA in percentage of total games played on no rest.

It’s an adage-shattering reality.

The NBA team that has played both the most games and the most back-to-backs is not showing signs of being tired (anymore). In fact, the red and yellow boys from the Bayou lead the NBA with a rest-and-recovery defying 92.3% win rate on the second night of back-to-backs.

How is that possible? Most people can’t go to the gym two days in a row. The Houston Rockets are a ridiculous 12-1 in these games.

Is it too late for Les Alexander to petition the NBA to adopt Major League Baseball’s day-after-day playoff schedule?

Before the All-Star break, the Rockets, Grizzlies, Magic and Lakers led the NBA in games played with 58. That total is two more contests than the league-leading Golden State Warriors or San Antonio Spurs.

The axiom goes: NBA teams are at a marked disadvantage on the second night of a back-to-back. The compounded games come with tired legs, increased chance of injuries and they regularly come on taxing road trips, not relaxed stays in your own bed.

Players, the league and owners have deemed back-to-backs and stretches of four games in five nights such a disadvantage to everyone that next year’s NBA season will start 10 days earlier. The new schedule will lessen back-to-backs and clusters of games at the cost of owners giving up the revenue they reap from preseason games.

Owners are willing to give up money. That’s how acknowledged the problem of a clustered NBA schedule has become.

The Rockets are shattering the axiom that tired legs lead to bad play and losses:

This is eye opening. These stats make the argument that it’s not the youngest teams and their spry legs winning games on no rest and a half day of preparation. The teams with the most wins on the second night of a back-to-back are the teams with a solid system who know their game plan regardless of the opponent or preparation time: Houston, San Antonio, Golden State and Memphis.

The Spurs place second in win percentage on no rest, but they’ve only played 10 games this season on the second night of a back-to-back. The Rockets continue to defy expectations in this table of statistics because they share the league lead in back-to-backs played before the All-Star break (seven teams top out at 13 games played on no rest).

When you break it out by percentage, the Spurs have only played 18% of their games on the second night of a back-to-back. The Rockets sit at fifth in the NBA having played 22.4 percent of their games on the second night of a back-to-back.

The Rockets’ 40 wins before the All-Star break become even more impressive when you know the team played with no rest and no preparation time nearly one-out-of-four of the times they’ve pulled on a jersey this season.

That trend doesn’t hold in the back end of the season. Houston’s already played 13 of their 16 back-to-backs (the Hawks have 8 back-to-backs left). Traditionally. this is good news. It means the Rockets will receive more rest while playing a less chaotic schedule before the playoffs.

But when you’re winning 92 percent of your second night back-to-backs why would you want to slow down? The Rockets should want the playoffs to start today.

Houston doesn’t play on Friday night, when they would be odds on favorites to beat anyone just based on these metrics. They do play on Saturday night against Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.

The only team to defeat Houston in the second night of a back-to-back this season: the Timberwolves.

Use this spreadsheet to view and access all the statistics used here