For the first time since March 10, the Houston Rockets have a basketball game on Friday night at the NBA “bubble” in Florida.
The league’s 2019-20 regular season will resume on July 30, and in the next week, each of the 22 teams invited to Disney World for the restart is playing three scrimmage games as a tune-up.
Instead of the usual 48-minute game length, the four quarters are cut to 10 minutes (40 minutes in total) for each team’s first scrimmage, which occurs for Houston on Friday versus defending NBA champion Toronto.
Though All-Star guard James Harden was a late arrival to training camp, he will play in Friday’s opener. As of Thursday night, the status of backcourt co-star Russell Westbrook was uncertain, since he was not cleared for practice until Wednesday after testing positive for COVID-19.
The game tips off at 6:30 p.m. Central, and it can be viewed live on NBA TV. It can also be streamed online via NBA League Pass. The radio broadcast is available via Houston’s flagship station, SportsTalk 790.
Led by Pascal Siakam and Kyle Lowry, the Raptors already faced the Rockets once this season. Houston won that Dec. 5 game in Toronto, 119-109 (box score), with Westbrook posting a triple-double.
The second and third scrimmages for the Rockets will come on Sunday and Tuesday night against Memphis and Boston, respectively. Those games will have standard 12-minute quarters. The regular season will then resume next Friday, July 31 versus Southwest Division rival Dallas.
The Rockets (40-24) will enter the NBA restart tied for the No. 5 spot in the Western Conference. They have already clinched their playoff spot, and they can finish anywhere between No. 2 and No. 7 in the West once the eight regular-season “seeding” games are complete.
Meanwhile, the Raptors (Friday’s scrimmage opponent) are 46-18 and in the No. 2 spot in the Eastern Conference.
The 2020 NBA playoffs will begin from Florida in mid-August.
