The Toronto Raptors have the momentum entering the second half of the NBA after getting a big road win against the Atlanta Hawks who currently sit on top of the Eastern Conference. The Raptors forced Atlanta into on of their worst games of the season and they hope to keep the progress going heading into a game against Western Conference threat Houston Rockets who made key additions at the trade deadline.
Toronto is winners of 10 of their last 12 games on a 12-game win streak. They still sit 5 1/2 games back from the Hawks, but looked the part of playoff contenders on Friday. Lou Williams put up 26 points along with getting 7 3-point shots. When on the court against the Hawks, Toronto is 11-0. Meanwhile Williams has scored 25-plus points four times in their last nine games.
The issue for Toronto is that they have dropped seven straight games against Houston. However, they showed defensive improvements against Atlanta, limiting the Hawks to just going 8-for-38 from the 3-point line while forcing 23 turnovers. Right now they are catching the Houston Rockets in a bit of a slump, but after trade deadline moves, that could change.
The Rockets lost out on the Goran Dragic sweepstakes, but did get KJ McDaniels and Pablo Prigioni to help with scoring off the bench. McDaniels is averaging 9.2 points per game while Prigioni was putting up 4.7 points with the New York Knicks. The Rockets fell to the Dallas Mavericks while dropping their last three of four games. They are currently 10-14 when shooting 35.0 percent from 3-point range. Against Dallas they went just 12 of 37 from long range. Along with shooting issues, they are hurting in turnovers, giving up 16.9 per game. While defensively the team is allowing 111.8 points per game on 49.1 percent shooting.
The Rockets will have James Harden, but will be without Dwight Howard. Getting McDaniels and Prigioni could help at least with production off the bench.
