Houston's uncertain road performance and a shocking key player injury complicate their playoff path against the Lakers.
With the Rockets starting their playoff run away from home against the Lakers, it’s important to look at their road record. At 22-19 throughout this past regular season, it was almost a coin toss if Ime Udoka and his team would win a game outside of Houston.
The beginning of the postseason just got a little bit more complicated for this Rockets team too, as ESPN recently reported some interesting news. Somehow, someway, the 37 year old future Hall of Fame forward left practice the other day with a right knee contusion. Tim McMahon broke that story here.
While it doesn't seem like anything too serious, the Rockets still might hold him out to be precautious, as Luka and Reaves will remain sidelined as well. This will be a real test for Houston after expecting to start the series with a much larger advantage. Now they'll look to improve on their 4-0 record without Durant this season.
StatMuse shows those four games weren't against the greatest competition in the world (beating the Suns, Warriors, Pacers, and Grizzlies), but three out of those four games did happen to be away from home.
That can give fans a little more confidence if KD doesn't suit up to play, but there's no excuses either way. It's the playoffs. We might be missing out on the matchups we all wanted to see, but I'm still ready for the action to start. Maybe we'll see Reed Sheppard step up, as discussed on Roundtable.