April 19, 2025
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Best Summer Development For Houston Rockets: Jabari Smith Jr.

Houston Rockets vs. Miami Heat game preview..

The Rockets take their current win streak and try to break their South Beach losing streak..

The Houston Rockets are 20 games above .500 for the first time since 2019.

That’s also the same year (not season) that Houston last defeated the Miami Heat. The Rockets have lost to the Heat nine straight times, which is the equivalent of about 18 straight losses if the teams played in the same conference. Houston broke a 15-game losing streak to the Golden State Warriors earlier this season, and tonight they can slay another demon in South Beach.

Best Summer Development For Houston Rockets: Jabari Smith Jr.

Houston comes in with the NBA’s longest active winning streak at eight games. The longest active losing streak in the NBA belongs to the Heat, who have dropped nine straight, which has dropped the proud franchise into tenth place in the East as I type this (they could be ninth again when you read this though).

The big attraction tonight is the return of Amen Thompson to Houston’s lineup and his impending rematch with Tyler Herro. The two got into a scuffle the last time these teams met, and Thompson received a two-game suspension for his part. The Rockets are a better team, especially defensively, when Thompson plays. It will be interesting to see how Ime Udoka handles the lineups since this is basically the first time Houston has been whole since early in the season. Starting isn’t as important in today’s NBA since guys regularly come off the bench and play more minutes than starters, but Houston has its full complement of depth that we expected coming into the season.

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Best Summer Development For Houston Rockets: Jabari Smith Jr.

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We’ll be in the Playback room tonight, so you should come join to watch the Rockets and talk about the game. Remember, we get a handful of VIP passes that we give out to anyone who wants to watch the game. No League Pass necessary!

Join us on Playback!
Dallas Mavericks v Houston Rockets
Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images
Make sure to check out The Dream Shake’s official Playback stream to watch games with us! To sign up:

Best Summer Development For Houston Rockets: Jabari Smith Jr.

Head over to playback.tv and create an account with your email address
Connect and select your NBA League Pass login as your streaming account (sign up for League Pass here first if you don’t have it)
Go to https://www.playback.tv/thedreamshake and hit the JOIN button
Make sure to activate push notifications so you know when we’re going live
Tip-off
7pm CT

How To Watch
NBA TV, Space City Home Network, and Playback

Injury Report
Rockets
Reed Sheppard: OUT

Best Summer Development For Houston Rockets: Jabari Smith Jr.

Heat
Nikola Jovic: OUT

Andrew Wiggins: GTD

The Line (as of this post)

N/A

Check here for updates

Looking ahead because we can
Friday night in Miami against the Miami Heat

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