{"id":674100,"date":"2026-03-23T07:17:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T07:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/674100\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T07:17:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T07:17:24","slug":"houston-rockets-vs-chicago-bulls-game-preview-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/674100\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets vs. Chicago Bulls game preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">Have the Houston Rockets turned the corner after adding Reed Sheppard to the starting lineup?<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Well, it bears mentioning that it took a great bounce to beat the Miami Heat on Saturday night. It also bears mentioning that Houston was only down in that situation because the player that Sheppard replaced in the starting lineup, Tari Eason, made a boneheaded play late. And it\u2019s not his first time.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Anyway, Houston now heads on the road for their second-to-last road trip of the season. Houston will play four straight on the road, followed by two more back at Toyota Center. Then it\u2019s two more on the road (including Kevin Durant\u2019s only trips to Golden State and Phoenix) and three at home to wrap up the season. There are only two more back-to-backs, and both take place entirely at home. We\u2019re in the home stretch now folks!<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In terms of importance, all the games are important now. If Houston wants to finish with a top 4 seed, they basically need to win all the games they are supposed to win. And on paper, they\u2019ll probably be favored in at least ten of their final 12 games. Catching the Lakers seems impossible without the tiebreak (and LA has stopped losing altogether). Denver also holds the tiebreak over Houston, but they still have games against OKC and San Antonio.<\/p>\n<p>Tip-off<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">7pm CT<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>How To Watch<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Space City Home Network<\/p>\n<p>Injury ReportRockets<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Steven Adams: OUT<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Fred VanVleet: OUT<\/p>\n<p>Bulls<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Zach Collins: OUT<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Noa Essengue: OUT<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Jalen Smith: GTD<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Jaden Ivey: GTD<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Isaac Okoro: GTD<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Guerschon Yabusele: GTD<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Anfernee Simons: GTD<\/p>\n<p>The Line (as of this post)<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">N\/A<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Check\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sportsbook.draftkings.com\/leagues\/basketball\/nba\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;here&quot;}\" class=\"link \">here<\/a>\u00a0for updates<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead because we can<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Wednesday night on the road against the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Have the Houston Rockets turned the corner after adding Reed Sheppard to the starting lineup? Well, it bears&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[4329,7,329,301,866,479,204,292,194,4066,3891,2497,1018,2291,938,973,189,152,6,2282,1081,211,969,962,873,2098,2152,23651,3209,4104],"class_list":["post-674100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-rockets","tag-anfernee-simons","tag-basketball","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-denver","tag-fred-vanvleet","tag-golden-state","tag-guerschon-yabusele","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-houstonrockets","tag-isaac-okoro","tag-jabari-smith-jr","tag-jaden-ivey","tag-jalen-smith","tag-kevin-durant","tag-matas-buzelis","tag-miami-heat","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-nba","tag-noa-essengue","tag-reed-sheppard","tag-rockets","tag-san-antonio","tag-steven-adams","tag-tari-eason","tag-texas","tag-the-lakers","tag-toyota-center","tag-usa","tag-zach-collins"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116277270652546870","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}