Last-minute Changes, Reports, and News ahead of Rockets vs. Warriors

So far this season, Steph Curry has played in 9 games and he hasn't scored below 20 in any of them. He's averaging a whopping 30.6 points a game and he's dragged the Warriors all the way out of a big hole. Golden State lost its first three games of the season and now it hasn't lost since. Eight straight wins and tonight that streak walks into the Toyota Center against the Houston Rockets. Houston is eight and three as well and has just lost one game at home so far. The Rockets also just snapped a two-game skid beating the Nuggets by 10 this past Monday. And this matchup is going to be a fun one because these two teams have a history of making games close against each other. Their last three regular season meetings were all decided by a combined seven points. So tonight, Houston gets them with both of our backup centers in street clothes against Steph Curry, the NBA's second leading scorer. So will Houston's defense be enough to slow down Steph Curry? And can we bring this Golden State streak to an end? Of course, for the Rockets, Steven Adams is still out of this game with a right calf strain, and he's played just one game all year. Capella is also out too with a right sprained ankle. So again, just like on Monday, Alperen Sengun is going to be the only healthy center in Ime Udoka's rotation. Sengun's already playing 35 minutes a night, so every minute he sits, Houston has to go small. When he missed two games last month, the Rockets split them, blowing out Milwaukee and losing in Dallas. The world out of Houston is that the both bigs are getting close to coming back with the road games in Washington and Miami on Sunday and Monday as the target. Fortunately for the Rockets, Golden State's list of injuries is actually longer than ours and almost all of it is on the perimeter. Jimmy Butler, of course, is still recovering from his torn ACL last year and Steve Kerr says he finished a workout in uniform over the weekend, so that's good news for them at least. Moses Musa is out after a surgery on his left kneecap tendon and Gary Payton is out with knee inflammation. Brandon Williams strained his right hamstring on Monday night against New Orleans so he's going to be out for at least a week and Kristaps Porzingis has stepped away from the game of basketball to focus on his health so hopefully he does get better but he hasn't played a game for Golden State all year and it's unlikely that he will. The one to watch is Will Richardson who has a torn ligament in his left thumb and was shooting in a splint before this game. The The official report has him as... probable, and Steve Kerr says he was playing at a really high level before he got hurt. So, added up, the Warriors are missing 5 players, and Houston's only missing 2. Of course, Butler and Moody both play on the wing, so that's going to be fewer bodies for Golden State to throw at Kevin Durant. But unfortunately, what Houston's missing is its size, and size is exactly what you need against a team that spreads the ball like Golden State. But drop it in the comments right now. Who's scoring more points tonight, Kevin Durant or Steph Curry? Let me know in the comments below. Let's go back to the start of the season. Three games into the year, this looked like a Warriors team that was depleted. They lost to the Lakers by 22 in their opener, and then they dropped two more to Memphis and Phoenix. Curry said all Kerr did after the third loss was talk about sticking with the process and what he'd seen on the film. This season, only the Lakers score more, 120.4 points a game, second in the whole league. A lot of that has come from deep, with 40.8 three points attempted per night. Curry alone is making 4.7 threes a game he's up to his usual antics. He's also shooting 45.7 from 3 this year on 10.2 attempts a night. On this run, he's put up 44 in Minnesota and 34 on Phoenix. On Saturday, he scored 41 points against Orlando and carried them to an overtime dub. Curry's line after that one. I don't know if anybody else in the world could make that shot. He's sat one night of each back-to-back so far, and tonight isn't one, so Golden State doesn't play again until Friday in San Antonio. And the biggest surprise of the year for Golden State is who has been helping Curry along the way. It's been rookie Axel Lundenborg, who has turned into the second best player on this team, and he's averaging 17 points and 6 assists, and that's also what he put up against Miami. But Jamke's also helping out a little bit too. He scored 25 in Monday's 51-point blowout of the Pelicans. And Steve Kerr went as far to say that George Niang has changed their entire team. And then, of course, there's Draymond Green, whose role this season has flipped completely. He's only scored two points in each of his last three games, and in one of them, he still had 13 assists, and Kerr says his shot attempts aren't the barometer for this team anymore. When Kerr sat him and Curry to open overtime against Orlando, Draymond called it 13 years of trust. It's been reported that the Warriors will listen to offers on him before the deadline, so every game he plays for them now gets watched. Their defense hasn't been the story either. They give up 111.2 points a game, which is 12th in the NBA. But the biggest part of this This warrior streak that matters is where it all happened. Six of eight of those wins came at home, so this is their first road game since October 28th. So their streak is finally leading Chase Center, and it's going to a building that this Rockets team has only lost in one time this year. And if this one feels personal in Houston, it should. In 2025, Golden State beat the Rockets in Game 7 in the first round. Houston was down three games to one, and won the next two to force Game 7 at home. Then, the Warriors closed out in Houston, 103-89. Since then, these two teams just can't get away from each other. Last November, the Rockets won at Golden State, 104-100. In March, the Warriors came into Houston and won by two. In April, Houston went back to the Bay and won by only one point, 117-116. So, Curry lost both the games he played against Houston last season. And this season, the two teams even look the same on paper. Golden State is a plus 9.2 a game. Houston is plus 9.1. The guy who decided the last meeting was Kevin Durant with 31 points and the one point win. Alperen Sengun also added 24 of his own that night. Against his old team since 2021, Durant is 8-4 in the regular season, averaging 23.6 points a game. So when it's this close every single time, the game comes down to a few things that you can see coming. So let's get into the three keys for victory here in Houston. Key number one is going to be the three-point line, and that's the scary one. Because Golden State is making 16.5 threes a game, Houston only makes 12.8. That's about 11 extra points a night the Rockets have to make up somewhere else. The somewhere else is on the defense, though, which gives up 106.4 points a game, fifth fewest in the entire NBA. Houston has held nine of its 11 opponents under 115 points, and in the three games Golden State scored under 115 this season, it went one and two. So that means Amin Thompson is going to be all over Steph Curry in this game, chasing him all over the court through every single screen, every single possession, because he is the Rockets' best chance against Curry. Durant also helps from the weak side. He's holding the players he guards to 36.8% shooting, fourth best in the entire NBA. Houston has shooters healing up too, with Fred VanVleet making 11 threes in his last three games. Key number two, again, is going to be the play of Alper and Sengun, because this is another game where there is no one else behind him. He's averaging 7.8 assists a game, so almost everything that Houston does runs through his hands. He already has the most games in Rockets history with 20 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists on 50% shooting, before even turning 25 years old. His shooting has dipped lately to 46% from the field over his last 5 games, down from 58% before that, and on Monday against Denver, he bounced back anyway with 20 points, 11 rebounds, and 8 assists. That's a very Sengun stat line right there. So the real danger with him is going to be fouls, again, with no one behind him on the depth chart, so if he gets fouls early on in this one, that would mean that Houston's giving up size by putting Jabari Smith on the court against a team that wants to have 5 shooters out there. If that happens, the rim protection falls on Kevin Durant and his 1.4 blocks a game. The Warriors are thin up front too, with Al Horford playing between 13 and 22 minutes in his last four games. Houston also grabs 13.1 offensive rebounds a game, and every second chance is a way to answer a three. With the bigs out, that's on guys like Tari Eason, who has a plus 18 in just 19 minutes against Denver. And key number three is going to be getting Kevin Durant going so he is back to being Kevin Durant. He averaged 23.3 points in his first six games and just 18.2 in his last five. Against Denver, he found a way in, getting to the line 10 times and making all 10 of them. That is going to be the way in again tonight because this Warriors team is a team that loves to give the ball away. They're turning it over 15.8 times a game. That's more than Houston's 14.2. Houston took care of the ball against Denver with 17 assists and only three turnovers in the first half. So if Durant actually attacks and the Rockets can turn these turnovers into points then that 3 point advantage doesn't look so scary anymore. So the books are still leading Houston with the Rockets as 6.5 point favorites over on DraftKings. ESPN's BPI gives them a 67% chance to win this game. That is a lot of faith in a team that lost two games last week. With the West standings being extremely close, with Golden State, Houston, Minnesota, and OKC all sitting at A-3, this game really matters. Win, and Houston hands Golden State its first loss in the month of November. Lose, and the Rockets drop three of their last four in a time where the rest of the West is really heating up. After tonight, it's Utah at home, then Washington and Miami on the road, so win here and we can set up a real run. My pick? Of course I'm going with H-Town. We're 5-1 at home, we have one of the best defenses in the entire NBA, and this is the first Warriors road game in two weeks. The only doubt, of course, is Steph Curry, who really hasn't had a bad night all season and is averaging over 30 points a game. So again, watch how the Rockets start in this one and see how Sengun does with no help behind him. And tell me down in the comments, who's the best player on the floor tonight? Is it Alperen Sengun or Steph Curry? Let me know in the comments down below.