Tonight ends the unofficial first half of the NBA season, though teams have actually played more than two-thirds of their total games at this point.
The Houston Rockets could avoid completely stumbling into the All-Star Break tonight with a win over the Los Angeles Clippers, who are desperately holding on to the eighth seed in the Western Conference standings. Obviously, teams in the play-in zone want to move into the top 6, but if you have to be in the play-in, 8th place isn’t a bad place to be. You are guaranteed two chances to get into the real postseason, and the second game would be a home game.