Houston Rockets vs. Cleveland Cavaliers game preview

I complain a lot about the schedule, but this year it has helped the Rockets out immensely. When Houston started the season poorly, they were consistently playing 2-3 games per week rather than 4-5. Then, once they got things figured out the games went back to normal without back-to-backs. And just when Houston loses a tough game and needs a back-to-back to get over the previous night’s loss, here it is.

No one likes back-to-backs, but if ever there was a time for one, it’s after that Detroit game last night. In between Blake Griffin hitting a stupid three pointer to Andre Drummond getting away with an obvious goaltend to the two missed kick ball calls in the final five minutes that both helped Detroit to James Harden reverting to full-blown bad defense James Harden, the Pistons game undoubtedly left a sour taste in Houston’s mouth.

Originally, this stretch of two games looked like the “Dysfunction Junction” portion of the schedule, with both Cleveland and the Wizards (on Monday) have looked inept at times and mediocre at others.

But Cleveland is starting to find themselves a little, as evidenced by the fact that they have played some competitive games lately and even beating the Philadelphia 76ers last night.

Tonight marks Houston’s first look at first-round pick Collin Sexton. The Alabama product will have to try to run Chris Paul off the court if he wants any chance of dominating this game. Rodney Hood is back in the lineup after last postseason and the Rocket killer is ready to drop a 40 piece.

Sometimes it’s simple. The Rockets gave up 40 free throws to the Pistons last night. Sure, some were questionable, but that cannot happen when a team has dreams of contending for a championship. When those kinds of games happen, sometimes you need another game immediately to refocus and move on.

Tip-off is at 6:30pm CT