The Christmas spotlight day comes too early for fighter jets

The Houston Rockets will play on Christmas Day, the NBA’s biggest stage of the regular season, for the first time since 2019. It’s an opportunity the Rockets envisioned when they traded in the offseason for Kevin Durant.

But as their holiday match with LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers looming large, the Rockets may regret wanting to be in the spotlight. Houston, hoping to be taken seriously as a champion this year, didn’t look like a team ready for prime time.

Instead of falling into Christmas, The rockets are limping therelosing five of their last seven games.

It’s an old cliché that the NBA season doesn’t really start until Christmas — which is bad timing for the Rockets, who have looked completely unprepared at this point.

This month alone, Houston has lost to each of the top five teams in the Western Conference. Most recently, they embarrassed themselves on Tuesday night in a 20-point loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, 8-21.

Head coach Ime Udoka described the effort of his team after the game.

“I felt tonight, I wouldn’t say that the Clippers are a team that plays extremely hard, but they outplayed us. Just with effort,” Udoka said after the loss.

The biggest problem was a step back in Houston’s defense, which led them a year ago.

“In the past, we could rely on defense,” Udoka said. “It just wasn’t there tonight.”

That defense surrendered 128 points to the Clippers while allowing them to shoot 55% from the floor and 20-for-37 from beyond the arc. It just came days after blowing the lead in the second half of 14 and 20 points against other teams in the lower ranks.

What was once Houston’s greatest strength has now quietly become a weakness.

Meanwhile, despite adding Durant this offseason, Houston still struggles to close games. They are 1-4 in overtime and just 6-8 in clutch games. Championship teams close out close games. Houston is not.

The Rockets also didn’t handle adversity like a championship team would. Houston has lost the second half of all three straight games they’ve played this season and is just 9-8 on the road while currently struggling through an extended road trip.

The addition of Durant was supposed to elevate the Rockets to the true class of NBA champions. Instead, Houston is just 1-5 against teams that have better records than them.

Through 27 games, they’re actually worse off with Durant (17-10) than they were at the same point last season without him (18-9). Currently, Houston is just one win ahead of seven seeds.

And now comes Christmas night in Los Angeles against LeBron and Luka Doncic, with most of the basketball world watching. If Houston wants to be taken seriously as a true contender, these are the moments that call for a good performance.

Everyone is looking for something this time of year. But Rockets fans may be regretting their desire for the spotlight this Christmas, as their team doesn’t seem quite ready for it.