The Houston Rockets came into the season with championship expectations after signing Dwight Howard and so far the center has performed up to the task and on Wednesday night the team will take on the division rival Dallas Mavericks at the American Airlines Center in a game that will be live on ESPN at 9:30 pm and streaming online from the WatchESPN website.
The Rockets are playing great on offense, but the defense has not quite been up to par and the team will try and take care of that on Wednesday night against a Mavericks team that has gotten off to a very solid 7-4 start after going .500 last season. The Rockets come in after winning over the Boston Celtics in a blowout on Tuesday and now they will play back to back against the Mavericks and after that the team will have a mini break before playing the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night at home at the Toyota Center. Jeremy Lin has been playing very well the past couple weeks and now the team is working to get closer in the standings to the San Antonio Spurs, who have only one loss and are leading the Southwest once again.
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Terrence Jones led the team in scoring against the Celtics, while Howard was once again tops in rebounds with 11 and Chandler Parsons added six assists and he has been playing very solid for the team as well. The Rockets come into the game ranked second in the league in scoring with over 108 points per game and they are also first in rebounding with nearly 50 per contest and that has been in no small part because of Howard. The team has also had to deal with the unhappiness of Omer Asik, as he has asked for a trade since losing his starting job and while the team has not agreed to do it, chances are it will be going down at some point in the future.
The team is ranked 27th in scoring defense and that will be something that has to change, but for now the Rockets are making it work playing one way basketball and they are outscoring teams as they pile up victories. The Mavericks come into the game after a close loss against the Sixers and after playing against the Rockets they will match up at home against the Utah Jazz, currently the worst team in the Association. The Mavs are ranked fifth in the league in scoring, so the game on Wednesday night could end up a high scoring one, as they are also ranked just 24th in scoring defense with over 102 points per game. Monta Ellis is leading the team in scoring while James Harden is doing that for the Rockets and so far Dwight Howard has been as good as advertised, averaging 13 rebounds per game.
The Mavericks were one of the teams that lost out to Howard and he has come through for the Rockets, averaging over 17 points with nearly 14 rebounds, which is best in the league and he has also had over 20 rebounds in a game multiple times this season. Howard has continued playing tough defense and he is averaging over two blocks per game and now the team is looking for a division win as they push into the December schedule and the backstretch here in November. The two teams are evenly matched and the Mavericks will be hosting the Rockets on Wednesday night at 9:30 pm in a game that will be on ESPN.