The Houston Rockets are without three starters and two future Hall of Famers in Sunday night’s road game at New Orleans.
In addition to Russell Westbrook (rest) and Clint Capela (heel), who were expected to be out, head coach Mike D’Antoni announced pregame that James Harden would also miss the game due to a sprained right big toe.
With both starting guards out, D’Antoni said pregame that Austin Rivers and Eric Gordon would be his starting backcourt. Gordon is returning Sunday after an absence of over six weeks due to knee surgery and was expected to have his minutes limited to around 25.
Per MDA, Austin Rivers and Eric Gordon will start as James Harden (toe sprain) is out tonight against New Orleans.
— Craig Ackerman (@ca_rockets) December 29, 2019
It’s unclear exactly when Harden suffered the injury. In Saturday’s win at home versus Brooklyn, the former MVP had 44 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, and four blocked shots in 40 minutes.
Reporters noted that Harden had a slight limp in the team’s locker room postgame, which potentially traced back to a sequence in the fourth quarter where he slipped and lost his footing. However, it’s not confirmed whether that play was correlated with the toe injury.
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Naturally, Harden still finished the game out. Entering Sunday, Harden had not missed any games of the 2019-20 season for the Rockets.
Asked about his ankle, Harden said simply, "It's good."
— ClutchFans (@clutchfans) December 29, 2019
The Rockets already expected to be shorthanded Sunday due to the losses of Westbrook and Capela. But Harden’s absence is clearly the most significant of all. The 30-year-old easily leads the the league at 38.3 points per game, and he’s also in the top 10 in assists at 7.5.
The Pelicans (10-23) entered Sunday having won four of their last five games. Combine that with the injury absences, and it’s suddenly a much tougher matchup than anticipated for the Rockets (22-10).
Entering Sunday’s games, the Rockets had the third-best record in the Western Conference. They’re only a half-game back of Denver (22-9) for the West’s No. 2 spot, with the Nuggets coming to Houston on Tuesday.
As such, they’d love to be at full strength for that New Year’s Eve game, if at all possible. Westbrook will almost certainly play, since he only sat out Sunday due to planned maintenance on night two of a back-to-back.
Meanwhile, the statuses of Harden and Capela for Tuesday’s showdown will likely be updated at Monday’s practice in Houston.
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