Rockets at Nets
THE STORY: Houston carries a five-game losing streak into Saturday night’s game at New Jersey. The Rockets will be without point guard Kyle Lowry, who was in the hospital Friday for abdominal distress and fever. New Jersey will be missing point guard Deron Williams, who left in the second quarter of Friday’s 83-74 win at Charlotte with a nagging calf injury and was ruled out of tonight's game. “When you don’t have a 22-point-a-night guy … you’re going to struggle, so I knew I had to step my game up,” said New Jersey’s Anthony Morrow, who scored all 17 of his points in the fourth quarter. Houston has won 10 straight in the series.
TV: 8 p.m. ET, FS Houston (Rockets), YES (Nets)
ABOUT THE ROCKETS (21-19): Houston plays four games in five nights and Lowry posted via Twitter that he expected to be “laid up” a few days. Goran Dragic, who will start for Lowry, also has a sore foot, Courtney Lee (right foot) missed practice and center Jordan Hill has a sore right knee. “We went through a rough stretch early in the year,” coach Kevin McHale told The Houston Chronicle. “We worked our way through it. We’re going through a rough stretch now. We’ll work our way through this, too.”
ABOUT THE NETS (14-27): Speaking of Williams, the talented point guard will be re-evaluated Saturday back in New Jersey. “We'll give an update on him once we check him out,” Nets coach Avery Johnson said. Williams scored seven points, his first time under double figures and 50 points less than the franchise-record 57 he scored in Charlotte on Sunday. Kris Humphries is averaging 13.0 points and 11.3 rebounds in his last four games and had 20 points and 15 rebounds Friday for his 17th double-double this season.
BUZZER BEATERS:
1. The Rockets hope to avoid their first six-game losing streak since Nov. 13-23, 2007.
2. New Jersey will try for its first three-game winning streak since winning five in a row last March.
3. Despite winning barely a third of their games, the Nets are only 4½ games behind eighth-place New York for the final playoff berth.