The Houston Rockets may have been built with beating the Golden State Warriors in mind, but nobody outside of Houston saw this one coming.
With Golden State’s loss to Milwaukee Thursday night, the Rockets have clinched the number one seed in the Western Conference, securing homecourt advantage throughout the West. Not only did they beat the Warriors in the standings, they guaranteed it with seven games remaining.
The Warriors will be the two seed.
Still, the regular season work is not quite done. The magic number for clinching homecourt throughout the entire playoffs is two — any combination of Rocket wins and Toronto losses.
How big is this? The Rockets are 31-6 this year at home. They are currently riding a 17-game winning streak at Toyota Center, the second-longest home winning streak in franchise history.