Mike D’Antoni: Top seed in West is ‘definitely doable’ for Rockets

Though the Rockets are 4.5 games back of the Lakers for the West’s top seed, Mike D’Antoni believes his team can still catch them.

Between their own win on Friday and a pair of surprising losses Saturday by the Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Clippers, the Houston Rockets recently moved into a tie for the No. 2 spot in the West standings.

But speaking at Monday’s practice, head coach Mike D’Antoni made it clear that the No. 2 spot in the Western Conference isn’t the team’s goal for the 2019-20 regular season.

Though the Rockets (24-11) are currently 4.5 games behind the Los Angeles Lakers (29-7) for the top spot in the West, D’Antoni believes there’s ample time for that to change over his team’s final 47 games.

Speaking at Monday’s practice in Houston, D’Antoni said:

We are tied for second, if I’m not mistaken. Not bad. We want to be first. We still have a goal to finish first. Definitely doable.

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If they’re able to earn the top seed, that would give the Rockets home-court advantage in every series they play during the West playoffs.

There is recent precedent for such a turnaround. On Jan. 9, 2018, the Rockets (28-11) trailed the Warriors (33-8) by four games in the race for the West’s No. 1 seed in the 2017-18 season. Led by eventual MVP James Harden, those Rockets (65-17) still ended up winning the top seed comfortably, finishing seven games ahead of Golden State (58-24).

In the case of this year’s Rockets and Lakers, all of their three regular-season meetings have yet to be played — with the first scheduled for Saturday, Jan. 18 in Houston. Should the Rockets win those head-to-head meetings, they could quickly make up ground.

Besides the head-to-head factor, however, the biggest priority for the Rockets to begin shrinking the gap would seem to be improving their performance against lesser opponents.

On paper, the main difference between the Rockets and Lakers this season is that Houston has six losses to teams that are below .500 (Nets, Spurs, Kings, Pistons, Warriors, Pelicans). By contrast to Houston’s 16-6 mark against losing teams, the Lakers are 20-0.

The Rockets have been better than the Lakers against .500 and above teams, going 8-5 (.615) compared to the Lakers’ 9-7 (.563). Houston’s impressive record versus good opponents includes a pair of double-digit wins last week over Denver (24-11) and Philadelphia (23-14).

But the team’s inconsistency and their inability to maintain that form versus lesser opponents has separated the two teams so far this season.

Houston has an opportunity to begin changing that narrative when they return to the court Wednesday night in Atlanta, where the Hawks (8-28) on paper shouldn’t be a match for the Rockets (24-11).

However, if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the team’s 2019-20 season to date, it’s to avoid assuming that a matchup on paper will automatically translate to the matchup on the court.

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