The Houston Rockets entered the 2013-14 season with high expectations and they started things off the right way, getting a big win against the Charlotte Bobcats and now after starting point guard Patrick Beverley was injured, Jeremy Lin will get his chance against the Dallas Mavericks on Friday.
Beverley won out the starting job in camp after beating out Lin and while coach Kevin McHale said he felt like he had two starting point guards, he will have Lin back in the starting lineup on Friday after he came off the bench on Wednesday. According to ESPN.com, Lin will be back as the starter after Beverley sustained a rib injury in the win over the Bobcats and funny enough, Lin also was banged up in that game, getting some stitches on his chin, but he was able to return while Beverley was not.
The Houston Chronicle is reporting that Beverley could be out for two weeks with the injury and that puts Lin back in the starting job, which was where he was last season when the year began. That came after signing a three year contract with the Rockets for a nice sum of money and now he will be getting the job back. In his first game of the season, Beverley scored five points before getting injured, while Lin ended up with 16 points in the game after coming in for relief. Beverley said that himself and the team wants to make sure he is fully healthy before getting back on the court and that he will support Lin from the bench.
Lin spoke to reporters about the move and said that the team needs Beverley to be a winning club this season and another player that was dealing with an injury was James Harden, although he was able to last against the Bobcats. Harden is not expected to miss anytime with a sore wrist and the team now will be playing at home in an all-Texas matchup with the Dallas Mavericks. Mark Cuban started things off for the game, saying that he felt it was a mistake for Howard to sign with the Rockets, as the Mavs were a team in contention and now he will be able to see Howard up close with his new team.
Howard started the season well with 17 points and 26 rebounds in the win over the Bobcats and now the team will have a new challenge with the Mavericks coming to visit the Toyota Center. The Rockets were one of the highest scoring teams in the NBA last season while pushing things with Harden and Chandler Parsons and now with Howard they should still be able to score, but they likely will also be better on the defensive end of the floor. The team ranked in the bottom part of the league last season in scoring defense and adding Howard should only improve that and while it was only one game, so far the team is ranked second in the league with 83 points allowed after defeating the Bobcats.
