The Rockets take on the Jazz in Utah to open the preseason
Welcome back to another Houston Rockets season! Or at least, another Rockets preseason.
Tonight, the Rockets travel to take on the Utah Jazz. These teams won’t meet in the regular season until February, so it will be a while yet before the Rockets return to the Delta Center.
The majority of our readers are intelligent, so I don’t need to dive into the “Hey it’s just preseason so don’t take any of these games too seriously” diatribe. Obviously, Rockets fans are mostly excited to see what strides the young core have made. The other fun part of preseason is seeing the shiny new toys and how they fit within the team’s system.
Those shiny new toys are number three overall pick Reed Sheppard and veteran center Steven Adams. Sheppard figures to come off the bench for this team. Meanwhile, Adams could start or play as a reserve. After missing about half of the 2022-23 season and all of last season with a PCL injury, the Rockets could look to limit his minutes early in the season and give him back-to-backs off, especially with Jock Landale ready to step into those minutes.
For the Jazz, they’ve got a bunch of pieces they’ll be trying out. Cody Williams and Isaiah Collier were their first round picks in the 2024 NBA Draft, and they have three first rounders left over from the 2023 Draft in Taylor Hendricks, Keyonte George, and Brice Sensabaugh. George averaged 27 minutes per game last season, but Hendricks only appeared in 40 games. Utah is expected to be at the bottom of the Western Conference this season with the Portland Trail Blazers.
Tip-off
8pm CT
How To Watch
Space City Home Network
Injury Report
Rockets
None
Jazz
Patty Mills-GTD
The Line (as of this post)
Looking ahead because we can
Wednesday night in Oklahoma City against the Thunder