{"id":715179,"date":"2026-04-09T07:06:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T07:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/715179\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T07:06:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T07:06:24","slug":"houston-rockets-clinch-top-five-seed-after-some-outside-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/715179\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets clinch top-five seed after some outside help"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston Rockets clinch top-five seed after some outside help<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Houston Rockets<\/a> had one of their most resilient wins of the season Tuesday night against the Phoenix Suns<\/a>. They overcame a large deficit in the first quarter and won their 50th game of the season.<\/p>\n

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On Wednesday, their week went from good to great, as they got an assist from the Orlando Magic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Houston secured a top-five seed after the Timberwolves were beaten by the Magic<\/p>\n

The Minnesota Timberwolves had several of their main contributors out for their clash against the Magic, and they paid the price, losing by a score of 132-120 and gifting the Rockets a higher seed, with Minnesota now being unable to catch the Rockets in the standings.<\/p>\n

The likeliest scenario for Houston as of the time of writing is a date with the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> in the first round of the playoffs, regardless of whether they finish in the 4th or 5th seed.<\/p>\n

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The Lakers have been struck by the injury bug and will be missing both Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves for the rest of the regular season<\/a>, and they would most likely be out for the first round of the postseason.<\/p>\n

The Rockets were dealt a big blow before the season even started after Fred VanVleet tore his ACL. However, they\u2019ve won seven straight games and have looked like a completely different team thanks to Reed Sheppard\u2019s recent performances, especially as a starter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With the two teams set on a collision course, the Rockets look like the better team on paper, and now they\u2019ll try to lock down the fourth seed and gain home-field advantage.<\/p>\n

More NBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets clinch top-five seed after some outside help originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":715180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[17378,8608,4345,3136,3141,3365,3121,1721,9276,40346,358,20724,6273,3187],"class_list":["post-715179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-austin-reaves","tag-fred-vanvleet","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-luka-doncic","tag-orlando-magic","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-reed-sheppard","tag-seed","tag-texas","tag-the-magic","tag-timberwolves","tag-tx"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116373486924265701","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}