Houston Rockets' Only Consistency Is Inconsistency

The Houston Rockets came out of Denver with what should have been a solid victory against a good team.  However, the Nuggets were missing so much of their team they were barely recognizable.  Matters got even worse for them when they lost Danillo Galinari for the next month with an ankle sprain in the third quarter.

The Nuggets finished the game missing 80% of their starting unit, but they still made a run with under five minutes to go in the fourth quarter until the Rockets finally sealed the deal.  Closing out a game is something the Rockets have struggled with but it is hard to gain much confidence playing against a team's B-squad.

That is too bad because the Rockets will have a tough go of it over the next week.  They will have four road games and then come straight home to face the best team in the NBA.  The Rockets may have more to worry about than just their grueling schedule. 

The Rockets seem to be a team without a true identity.  They can be a good offensive team, but that is hardly a calling card of the team after failing to score 100 points in 16 of their 25 games.  The defense is rarely good for an entire game but can flash moments of great help defense or of Dalembert being a true shot-blocking presence.  However, neither of those are consistent enough to hang your hat on.

If the Rockets are going to break into the playoffs, they will need someone or something to lean on.  To this point they seem to be only defined by their inconsistency.  Kevin Martin can be a great scorer or he can go through a streak where he only connects on 2-19 shots from the floor, which he has done in the past two games. Luis Scola could have a great game, like he did in Denver, but he is at least as likely to be a marginal player who may actually be worse on defense than Martin.

As sporadic as the starters are the bench is even more sporadic. Chase Budinger continues to show glimpses of what it takes to be a good NBA player and panoramic shots of what its like to be a rotational player struggling to get on the floor.  Perhaps, that is something he learned at Arizona because his college teammate, Jordan Hill, displays many of the exact same characteristics.

The only Rockets to have shown any consistency are Kyle Lowry, Courtney Lee and to a lesser extent Goran Dragic.  However, two of those three players are coming off of the bench and simply do not play a large enough role on this team to be able to have a major steadying impact on the rest of the roster.

Lowry says that he wants this to be his team; that he wants to be the leader.  He may already have that position but he hasn't mastered it yet.  He needs to find some way to keep all of the rest of his team on the same page from night to night.

Lowry is playing very good basketball right now but he doesn't take over a game the way that Russell Westbrook can with his scoring or Steve Nash could with his passing.  When Lowry is at his best he is aiming for a triple-double, around 15/10/10.  On a good team that is more than enough to make them great, but on a team that lacks a superstar it leaves them lacking still.

So far the Rockets are three games over .500 and clinging on to the seventh playoff spot, but this next week could have a lot to do with where they end up at the end of this shortened season.