Houston Rockets
Oklahoma City ThunderHouston beat Oklahoma City by 27 points on October 15 and nobody in either locker room cared much, because it was preseason. Rockets vs Thunder on Halloween night at Toyota Center is the first one that counts, and it is Houston's first regular-season look at a team that has been the West's No. 1 seed three years running.
Tip-off is 7:30 p.m. CT on Saturday, October 31 (8:30 p.m. ET, 00:30 GMT on Sunday in the UK), with NBA TV carrying it nationally.
64-18, an MVP, and a Game 7 that still hurts
Oklahoma City won 64 games last season, the best record in the league. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander took his second straight MVP with 31.1 points a game on 55.3% shooting, collecting 83 first-place votes.
Then San Antonio beat them in seven games in the Western Conference finals. ESPN's Dean Oliver pointed out that Gilgeous-Alexander, Isaiah Hartenstein and Jalen Williams all played well below their norms against Victor Wembanyama's defense, and Williams had already lost much of the year to wrist surgery and hamstring trouble.
The summer took three role players off the 2025 title team. Luguentz Dort and Aaron Wiggins were traded to Atlanta and Isaiah Joe to Detroit, all for draft picks. Hartenstein re-signed for three years. Even so, ESPN projects 60.7 wins and its Basketball Power Index has OKC at No. 1. It's hard to argue.
52-30, twice, and nothing to show for it
Houston have won exactly 52 games in each of the last two seasons. The first time that meant the No. 2 seed. Last season, with Kevin Durant on board, it meant fifth place and a first-round exit in six games against a short-handed Lakers team.
Durant did his part. He averaged 26.0 points in 78 games, playing 36.4 minutes a night, and he turned 38 this year. The trouble was everything around him in the half court: the Rockets ranked 19th in half-court offense, shot 36% in the last four seconds of the shot clock (per Synergy) and finished 18th in scoring at 115.2 points per game.
The fix they are counting on is Fred VanVleet, who missed the whole of 2025-26 after tearing his ACL in September 2025. In the preseason games in Macao he had 17 points, seven assists and five threes in 24 minutes. Houston also added Marcus Smart (two years, $13 million) and Bogdan Bogdanovic, re-signed Tari Eason for five years and $81.5 million, and gave Amen Thompson a five-year, $208 million extension.
125-124 in double overtime: the last four meetings
| Date | Where | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 21, 2025 | Oklahoma City | Thunder 125-124 (2OT) |
| Jan 15, 2026 | Houston | Thunder 111-91 |
| Feb 7, 2026 | Oklahoma City | Rockets 112-106 |
| Oct 15, 2026 (preseason) | Houston | Rockets 116-89 |
OKC took last season's series 2-1. The opener went to double overtime, which tells you these two can make each other miserable.
Rockets vs Thunder: the numbers that decide it
Start with 8.3. That's how many fewer points per 100 possessions than league average Oklahoma City allowed last season, according to NBA.com, the second-best gap in 30 years of play-by-play data. Chet Holmgren (17.1 points, 8.9 rebounds, 1.9 blocks) finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting. For an offense that already stalls late in the clock, that's a bad wall to run into.
Houston's way around it is the stuff that doesn't need a half-court set. Their transition attack kept them top 10 overall last season, and they were strong on the offensive glass. Alperen Sengun against Holmgren and Hartenstein inside is the matchup I'd watch most closely. Ime Udoka's teams have defended at an elite level every year he's been there, so this probably won't be a track meet.
One more number, and it's the one that worries me for Houston: 1. That's how many days of rest they get. The Rockets play an NBA Cup game in Dallas on Friday, October 30, then fly home to host the Thunder the next night.
Toyota Center, Houston, during the 2018 playoffs. Photo: Hhk1989, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
48.5 wins against a +260 favorite
Vegas set Houston's win total at 48.5, and Yahoo's preseason power rankings had them 12th. Oklahoma City opened at +260 to win the title at BetMGM. On paper that's a big gap for two teams that both won 50-plus last season.
I think it's about right, at least for October. Houston on the second night of a back-to-back, still working VanVleet back in, against a Thunder rotation that knows exactly who it is. I'll take OKC by around six, and I won't be shocked if Durant makes it closer than that in a building that will be loud on a Saturday night.
Where to watch
NBA TV has the national broadcast of Rockets vs Thunder in the US. Houston fans also get it on Space City Home Network, while in Oklahoma it's on KWTV (CBS 9) and the Thunder+ app. Outside the US, NBA League Pass is the usual route, so check your local listings in Mexico, Australia and the UK.
You can also catch the game free on DAMITV's NBA streams page, in HD and with no sign-up, and Spanish speakers can follow along through our NBA en vivo hub. The night before, the Knicks visit Philadelphia, and we've previewed that one too: 76ers vs Knicks. The official game page is on NBA.com.
