41-41. The eighth seed in the playoffs because of a tiebreaker over the Utah Jazz. A first-round matchup with the greatest regular season team in basketball history.
This is how the Rockets season was inevitably going to be, after the team decided it was most comfortable hovering around .500 and in the fringes of the playoffs. In fact, if you had asked me the most likely spot for the Rockets back in December, I probably would have said the eighth seed. I was far from alone.
But this is the ending that, like this season, also keeps one emotionally ambivalent.