Ben DuBose

To me, if you're a serious team, you've got to be at least 3-1 over these next four games.

You're going to be heavy favorites by double digits at home against the Tanking Jazz, the Tanking Kings, and then find a way to take one of those two in Charlotte or New York.

Ideally both.

I mean, 4-0 is not implausible, but the Knicks especially are a good team.

The Hornets have been playing very well of late, although now they've got a couple of suspensions since they last beat the Rockets in Houston a couple of weeks ago.

But my outlook going in these four games next week, none are back-to-backs.

If you're a serious team, you should be at least 3-1.

That's my outlook.

Anything that I'm missing there?

All right, final segment.

And I'm shamelessly stealing this from the Lockdown Rockets roundtable that I was on earlier this week.

And so I'll try to be more concise with mine because for folks who want to know my mindset in greater depth, you can just hit up the Lockdown Rockets YouTube page and listen or watch as I explain it there.

But the segment Jackson put together was basically what makes this a successful season for the Rockets.

And I think it's a good time to discuss it, certainly coming off the All-Star break, but also, you know, to go full circle to the Kevin Durant alleged burner controversy.

I mean, if there's any potential of making bigger moves in the offseason or feeling that you need to, this is a good time to discuss, you know, what the checkpoints are for, you know, feeling good enough about this team to, you know... Well, certainly if you win the title, I think that's an unlikely outcome and it's not implausible.

But if you don't win the title, what makes you comfortable enough over the remaining 29 games of the regular season and the ensuing playoff run to, um...

I mean, it's not a lock that the Rockets will make the playoffs, but it's pretty damn close.

I mean, they have a decent buffer over the play-in tournament, and even if they get there, you know, they have a huge buffer over teams in the 9 and 10 spots, so you'd probably need to win just one home game.

But I think that's very unlikely.

They get passed by all three of the Suns, the Lakers, and the Timberwolves, all with the easiest schedule.