Rockets Host Nuggets Monday Night at Toyota Center, Trying to End a Two-Game Skid
Houston started 7-1 and has lost two straight. Denver arrives at 5-3, winners of four of five - but with all five starters listed as questionable, including Nikola Jokic. Tip is 7:30 p.m. CT at Toyota Center.
The Houston Rockets' season had a shape a week ago: 7-1, a defense strangling people, and championship talk that did not sound ridiculous. Two games changed the temperature. Houston lost by 10 at home to Minnesota on Wednesday, failing to corral the Timberwolves in the fourth quarter, then rallied from 19 points down at Phoenix on Saturday only to lose 102-99 - and Monday night the Denver Nuggets come to Toyota Center with the Rockets trying to keep a two-game skid from becoming a story. Tip is 7:30 p.m. CT.
Ime Udoka's diagnosis of the two losses was short. 'It's just the physicality of the last two (losses),' the Rockets' coach said, in the Reuters/Field Level Media preview. The wire's account of the Phoenix game backs the frustration: Houston was sufficient defensively for long stretches, but a lackluster start and late-game problems guarding Devin Booker decided it. The comeback itself ran through a small-ball lineup - Jabari Smith Jr. at center in place of Alperen Sengun - that closed the first half on a 22-3 run to tie the game. Whether that wrinkle returns Monday is one of the night's open questions, because Houston's frontcourt is thin: Clint Capela and Steven Adams are out again, per the game previews, Adams with a calf injury and Capela with an ankle problem.
Denver arrives in the opposite mood and, possibly, in worse health. The Nuggets have won four of their last five, including Saturday's 114-102 win over Indiana in Mexico City, where Nikola Jokic scored 19 points to lead seven Nuggets in double figures, with a game-high 13 rebounds and eight assists, and the bench produced 43 points - Spencer Jones scoring 13 with six rebounds in his season debut, DeMar DeRozan adding 11 points and five assists, and Marvin Bagley III 10. But Denver listed all five starters, plus DeRozan, as questionable for Monday: Jokic is dealing with a right elbow sprain and Jamal Murray with a left shin contusion. Questionable is not out - the listing is reported here exactly as the wire reported it - but a 5-3 Denver team on a long trip home from Mexico City may look very different depending on who is actually available at tip.
The stakes are modest this early, and real. Houston, 7-3, allows 107.0 points a game - among the league's best defensive marks - and averages 116.0; Denver, at 5-3, has spent a week stacking wins over Phoenix, Toronto and Indiana. A win Monday steadies the Rockets before the schedule moves on; a third straight loss turns two bad nights into the season's first genuine wobble. Either way, the answer starts with whether Houston's defense shows up for a full 48 minutes.
