Houston Rockets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder preseason game preview

Tonight marks the third and final preseason game for the Houston Rockets. On the other side of the court, the Oklahoma City Thunder are playing their fifth game that doesn’t count.

Obviously, some of that is due to the Rockets taking a trip across the Pacific Ocean to play a pair of games with the Dallas Mavericks. Additionally, Houston knows its players and probably already has a decent idea of what the rotation will look like when the games start to count. Marcus Smart is new to the team but not to Ime Udoka. Bogdan Bogdanovic is the other new addition that figures to get minutes, and he’s a 34-year-old that knows the ropes. There isn’t a lot that needs to be worked out.

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The Thunder of course still retain their core from last season, but had to make some trades to make their financial lives better down the road. The Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams (“J-Dub” for the kids at home) both had their big rookie extensions kick in this season and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander gets a $20.8 million bump in his salary next season. And they have to figure out a Cason Wallace extension by Monday or will risk him hitting restricted free agency next summer (and there will be suitors for him, I assure you). Due to those factors, they traded Lu Dort, Aaron Wiggins, and Isaiah Joe in the offseason to get cheaper on the books.

OKC is also integrating rookies Aday Mara and Bennett Stirtz into their lineups, and also get a full offseason with Jared McCain and Nikola Topic, though the latter has missed all of preseason with a back injury. The point is that OKC is going to be a different team this season, especially in the regular season. A few more games probably helps them a lot more than the Rockets.

We’ll see you back here Wednesday for the start of the regular season!

Tip-off

7:30pm CT

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How To Watch

NBA TV and Space City Home Network

Injury Report

Rockets

A handful of GTDs

Thunder

Also a handful of GTD

The Line (as of this post)

No clue

Check here for updates

Looking ahead because we can

The regular season begins Wednesday night in Houston against the Dallas Mavericks

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/houston-rockets-vs-oklahoma-city-040000052.html

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Publish date : 2026-10-15 04:00:00

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