Houston is 18-17 through 35 games — a far cry from where the Rockets were at this point in the last three seasons. They were 11-24 in 2020-21, and 10-25 in both 2021-22 and 2022-23, on their way to final totals of 17, 20 and 22 wins in those seasons.

“For me, not surprised or happy,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “They bought in from Day 1 and once you see the competitive side, the mindset, you know you have the right guys there. We had five or six games that we could have flipped the other way.”

火箭總教練Udoka表示：我對此並不意外或是顯得開心，球員們從第一天就非常投入，而一旦你看到了競爭的一面、看到了求勝的心態，你就知道，你擁有了正確的球員。我們有五到六場比賽本來可以贏的。