Ben DuBose

They're 26-15.

They're back on that 52-win pace that they finished at a year ago.

And so I'm sure we'll talk about whether that's a good thing as the episode progresses.

But certainly the level of play since the road trip has been much better.

The Rockets just completed a five-game homestand.

They went 4-1.

And now, starting tonight, we're recording on Thursday, the 22nd of January, the Rockets have a challenging back-to-back in Philadelphia and Detroit, made even more difficult by the fact that you won't have Steven Adams for either of those games against fairly physical and imposing frontcourts.

Steven is out indefinitely with a severe sprain of his left ankle, which we'll definitely talk about today as well.

But because it's been a couple of weeks since Paolo and I have recorded, and I've been doing the Clutch Fans post-game shows, you guys have heard from me.

You haven't heard from Paolo.

So I'm going to kick it to him for the opening monologue, if you will.

Paolo, how differently are you feeling about this team now, coming off that 4-1 homestand, where you did have a loss to the Thunder, in which you had a terrible fourth quarter.

But other than that, I mean, you win 80% of your games.

It's hard to complain about it.

The most recent one was nationally televised Tuesday night.

Reed Shepard looked fantastic.

You came back from 16 down to beat a very good Spurs team that...

At the moment is number two in the West, but is only one game ahead of the Rockets in the loss column.

Rockets back in the four seed.

So as things stand, they would have home court advantage in at least one round of the Western Conference playoffs.