Ben DuBose

I'm Ben Dubose.

He's Paolo Alves.

We're your hosts.

I write for USA Today's Rockets Wire.

It's Tuesday, March 10th.

The Rockets are back in action tonight against the Toronto Raptors.

Houston now 39-24 on the season, number four in the Western Conference.

But they've lost two of their last three games.

And today we're going to look back.

Before we look forward, because unfortunately, the most recent loss on Sunday night in San Antonio to a 47 and 17 Spurs team that's number two in the West was one of the most painful in a while.

Not necessarily in a heartbreaking sense, because the Rockets got just drilled in that game, lost by 25 points.

But seeing that gap relative to one of the big boys of the Western Conference, an in-state rival, a division rival, that going into the year you thought you were still ahead of in terms of the timeline, but led by Wemby and all the young guys the Spurs have, they have accelerated their timeline in a big way.

And now they're seven games up on the Rockets in the standings.

They're almost certainly going to finish ahead of Houston in the standings this year.

And they won three of the four regular season matchups.

And the final six quarters, the second half of that second January game in Houston, and then this March rematch in San Antonio were absolutely dominated by the Spurs.

And what was most frustrating and concerning, you know, the big question coming out of the January game was how the Rockets would counter the adjustment the Spurs made to have a

Wemby guard a man and sag off and roam and prevent the other four guys from getting going.

Take advantage of a man being a non shooter.

Well, that wasn't the issue in this one.