Meeting the Knicks at the Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, the Houston Rockets is on the rage of imposing its dominance on the NBA's western conference while the New York Knicks is still struggling to get their affairs in order.
On their last game against the injury ridden Clevseland Cavaliers, the Houston Rockets grabbed their third win in their last five games of the season. The man of the night was James Harden who almost had a triple-double performance with 21 points, grabbing seven rebounds and handed out nine assists. Dwight Howard helped the Rockets dominate the Cavs and took advantage of the absence of its star player LeBron James. Despite Kyrie Erving's 38 points game performance, the Cavs failed to capitalize and eventually yielded to the Rockets' excellent offensive output.
The New York Knicks on the other hand might just be heading to their worst season ever with their record at 5-33 and sustaining a 13 game losing streak. Notwithstanding the fact that Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire are out of the game due to lingering injuries, the Knicks manage to hold off the Wizards and only gave in a modest 10 point advantage when the final buzzer sounded. Things are looking pretty grim for the Knicks after they let go of J.R. Smith and Imam Shumpert in a six player trade that involved three teams.
The upcoming game presents a lot for both teams. Rockets although confident about its teams lineup has been known to blow some games despite playing against inferior teams and this game against the Knicks could be just another one of those. The Knicks on the other hand has to adjust their game to a higher level in order to match the Rockets. The fact that two of its biggest players are on the sideline suffering from injuries could be a spark that could start a flame and somehow power their already waning team.
