Going into this game, the Houston Rockets were only expected to make things mildly competitive, best case scenario. The team, without Chris Paul for its sixth straight game and their third primary playmaker in Eric Gordon, could have treated this performance as a way to get its supporting cast to develop more of an identity and rhythm. Expectations were realistic from #RocketsTwitter:
Today’s a “process” game for me – would love to see us continue to play well, especially defensively, get contributions from our wings, and Harden to keep driving us forward.
— StanfordKP (@stanfordkp) January 4, 2019
It was natural to expect the Rockets to chalk this game up as a schedule and injury loss for a team that is finally, to paraphrase Mike D’Antoni, “finding its sea legs.