Can the Houston Rockets make the playoffs this season?

Fubo News makes the case for and against the Houston Rockets making the NBA playoffs in 2023-24. Watch the NBA on Fubo this season.

When the Houston Rockets won six straight games, they were the talk of the NBA. Can this Houston team actually make the playoffs? The Rockets built the team in a fairly unconventional way in the modern NBA but it was working.

Since then, they have lost three straight games to teams with more profile to teams that are expected to make the playoffs. 

Those three losses are not signs the team is regressing to the same Houston team that won just 59 games over the past three seasons. In fact, the Rockets are just as impressive if not more impressive than the wins for a potential Houston playoff resume this season.

During Houston’s six-game win streak, the team announced to the NBA that there was something brewing there for the first time in three full seasons.

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The defense clamped down holding three teams to less than 100 points and two more to 104 points or less. All six wins came at home with Houston closing out both the New Orleans Pelicans and Denver Nuggets in games decided by just three points.

There was plenty to like about Houston during this streak that helped the team rebound from an 0-3 start to the season.

Head coach Ime Udoka is pulling the right strings in his first year with the team and second year holding the clipboard. He is blending the youth that Houston has accumulated over three drafts and the veterans signed this summer with a strong symbiosis. 

When a team like Houston starts to win it comes with excitement and accolades but it also brings more serious opponents. It brings a new level of scouting. It brings respect.

But it also brings expectations.

That is where Houston is today after losing three straight games against teams that are all filled with veterans and championship expectations.

Houston learned that first against the Los Angeles Clippers who snapped the win streak with a 106-100 victory. That game was tied at 100 with 29 seconds to go in the fourth quarter and was decided on a four-point play when James Harden was fouled shooting a three-pointer with just 6.0 seconds to go.

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After that loss, the team stayed in the same arena to take on LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers. That game was also tied at 104 with four seconds to go in the fourth quarter before James fouled with effectively no time remaining.

In the most recent loss Houston had to fight back, but ultimately fall just short to the Golden State Warriors. 

Down 10 with 2:21 to go in the game, Houston clawed back to get it as close as 117-112 but didn’t quite have enough to pull off the comeback.

That is three games for Houston, all on the road, all against championship-caliber – veteran teams where they lost by a combined 12 points.

The word is out on Houston this season. The Rockets are not a pushover that is looking to get another high draft pick. They are a team that, in part because of an impressive win streak and in part because of three tough losses, are on a trajectory to make the playoffs for the first time in four years.

Winning builds good habits and the losing builds character. 

The good habits that Houston is building all pass the eye test through 12 games. The Rockets also all have the foundation of being sustainable over the course of the season.

Houston is fifth in points allowed per game (107.0) and also in defensive rating (110.0) this season. That is built on three core tenets of the defense.

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One, they close out defensive possessions with rebounds 76.5% of the time. Teams are only grabbing 10.3 offensive rebounds per game, which is 21st in the NBA.

Second, they make teams play one-on-one. So far this season, only one other team is better at disrupting the flow of an offense by allowing fewer assists per game on the defensive end. Teams are only assisting on 59% of their made baskets forcing a lot of isolations, dribbling and tough shots.

Third, Houston allows only 34.8 attempts (12th), 11.7 makes (seventh) and 33.6% shooting (third) from three this season. The Rockets are effectively erasing the single most important weapon in the NBA today from teams.

All three of those variables combined together make Houston one of the toughest, stingiest and hardest defenses to play night after night. 

They play hard every possession on the defensive end, which has gone from a novelty to a trend at this point in the season. Houston has learned good habits this season that are slowly becoming an identity.

Another variable that is starting to work for Houston is finding structure and hierarchy on a roster that is filled with blue-chip talent. 

The team drafted Jalen Green second overall and Alperen Sengun 16th overall in the 2021 NBA draft. Then, the Rockets brought in Jabari Smith Jr. with the second pick in 2022, Tari Eason with the 17th pick and most recently Amen Thompson with the fourth pick in the 2023 NBA Draft.

For just over two seasons, it has been chaos in Houston, like an AAU team that rolls the ball out and figures it out on the fly.

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That is not a dig at Stephen Silas as a coach but it was clear he was the wrong voice for this group. Under Silas, the team was 27th, 39th and 29th in defensive rating. The Rockets were also bottom five in offensive rating with the team not having any leaders on the court.

Insert Udoka as head coach, who has given the team a clear structure and hierarchy. Veteran floor general Fred VanVleet is the head coach on the court and third-year big man Sengun is the franchise. 

The duo have built a chemistry that is only going to get better over the course of an NBA season. That chemistry has also allowed everyone else to slide into the correct roles on the court, which is maximizing its efficiency.

Sengun has clearly grown this season both physically and in his play on the court this season. He is putting up numbers that make it easy to compare him to the likes of Domantas Sabonis and Nikola Jokic.

Building around a modern big man like Sengun helps put all the pieces around him in order. 

Green can be a scorer. Smith Jr. can fill up the stat sheet with his versatile skill set. Eason can attack the boards and defend. Thompson (when healthy) can push the pace as an athletic rocket launches at the defense.

All of that is built around the structure that Udoka brought to the team, the veteran leadership of VanVleet and the budding stardom of Sengun as the fulcrum of it all.

Can Houston make the playoffs this season? 

Absolutely. All of the pieces are in place, especially after this three-game losing streak that saw the team go toe-to-toe with the best in the NBA without flinching.

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