After showing how dominant they can be in Houston, the Rockets need to do the same on the road in order to surpass Western Conference competition.
The Houston Rockets are on the up and up as an organization. They’ve gone from a lottery team with no goal of winning games, to turning their accumulation of draft picks into a solid playoff team. After ending each of the past two years with a 52-30 regular season record and a first round exit, there’s hopes that they can break through and advance further in the playoffs soon.
Home-court advantage can improve any team’s chances of doing just that, but it seems even more important for the Rockets. Last season they went 30-11 at the Toyota Center, meaning they barely won more than half of their games away from home. They had a 22-19 record on the road, per StatMuse.
That might not seem too bad since the NBA Champion New York Knicks had the exact same road record, but it’s not that simple. For starters, the Knicks went on an unbelievable playoff run, only losing three games. Two of those three losses were actually at home, too, giving them a better record on the road than in MSG this postseason.
It’s also important to mention that they play in a different conference. It’s more valuable to look at teams in the West, since they actually play a role in the playoff seeding. The LA Lakers won 25 road games, while the Denver Nuggets went 26-15. That’s the main reason why they finished ahead of Houston, because the Rockets won two more home games than each of those teams.
Even the Minnesota Timberwolves went 23-18, winning one more road game than the Rockets. Thankfully, they won four less games at home, keeping them comfortably back in sixth place. The 20-21 Phoenix Suns are the first Western Conference team with a road record worse than the Rockets, which is a problem considering they were a Play-In team.
It seems obvious that this is an area where improvement is needed for Ime Udoka and his team. While they have won 52 games in consecutive seasons, they also finished lower in the standings, and had a much worse performance in the playoffs this past season. In some respects, you could say they were slightly worse, despite having the same overall record.
Their first real roadtrip of the season will be from November 15th to November 20th, starting with a back-to-back against the Washington Wizards and Miami Heat. On the 18th, they’ll face the Indiana Pacers, before concluding with an Emirates NBA Cup game in Denver.
That’ll be Houston’s 17th game of the season, and their 8th on the road. Technically their 9th game away from home, though, as the October 23rd game is at a neutral site. Being just about 20-percent of the way through the season, this will give us a good sample size, and a great chunk of road games to see if the Rockets have made any improvements there.
