Houston's back-to-back struggles persist. Can they finally secure wins on both nights and avoid a familiar losing pattern this season?
While the NBA has consistently tried to cut down on the number of back to back games each team has to play, those nights will inevitably come for every team. For the Houston Rockets, those nights are becoming all too familiar in 2026.
The past two weeks, Rockets fans have been able to start their weekends off on a high note after beating the Timberwolves and Pistons on Friday nights. Unfortunately, they both came after tough losses the night before.
Right in the middle of this month, Houston laid an egg against the reigning champs before bouncing back in a down to the wire matchup against Minnesota the next night.
Just a week later, the painful overtime loss in Philly started off the most recent back to back on a similar note. And just like the week prior, they bounced back against a championship contender and snuck out a win in Detroit.
With San Antonio visiting Toyota Center for a late ESPN double header tonight, and Houston heading directly to Atlanta for tomorrow's game, I’d like to see a different outcome than the two prior weeks. A different outcome than we’ve seen from this Houston team in a while.
Can the Rockets get a proverbial “sweep” in this back to back? It’d be the first time for them this season.
Strangely, the three back to backs before the change of the calendar had the complete opposite outcome of the two in 2026 —— winning on the first night, but losing on the second night. A much more expected outcome when rest is in their favor, but still interesting how that’s been flipped.
Not the worst thing in the world since there’s no back to backs in the playoffs, but it does raise an eyebrow when comparing to the other teams without a sweep in these scenarios.
Out of the 30 NBA teams, the underwhelming Orlando Magic are the only other legitimate playoff team to not pick up wins in consecutive days. Heck, they might not even be a legitimate playoff team right now.
Somehow the Utah Jazz managed to beat Orlando and San Antonio December 26th and 27th. The Kings can thank the Rockets and Lakers for back to back wins a couple weeks ago. Even the Pelicans did it very early in the season.
That means Houston sits aside the forever .500 Bulls, Giannis-less Bucks, injury riddled Grizzlies and Mavericks, underwhelming Magic, and the tanking Nets and Wizards. Not necessarily the crowd you want to be mentioned with, regardless of the conversation.
With back to backs in eight out of the ten remaining weeks on the schedule, it’s as good of a time as any for this team to show they can get a sweep. The week after All-Star Weekend and the last week of March are the only weeks without a back to back on the schedule. If Ime Udoka and his team can’t figure out what it takes to win both games, just chalk up one of the nights up as a scheduled loss every week.