Charlotte comes to town to get thrown down

The Rockets come back to Toyota tonight to play the Charlotte Bobcats at 7:30PM CST after working through an extremely tough game against the Atlanta Hawks. The Bobcats seem, to the unwatching eye, (since I've seen a grand total of 0 of their games this year) to be a similar team to Atlanta. Very young, very athletic. They will give the Rockets as much as they can to end this streak. As a young team it is something they can build on for the rest of the season.

Charlotte Bobcats: 24-40 (6-23 on the road) 5-5 in their last 10

Houston Rockets: 44-20 (24-9 at home) 10-0 in their last 10

Prior to a loss at Dallas on Wednesday the Bobcats had won 5 in a row including 2 of their 6 road wins on the season by an overall average of 10.2 points. Over that streak they beat Toronto (Without Bosh), Minnesota (on the road), Golden State, Atlanta and Washington (on the road). Not a world beating streak, but still, confidence can be breed by beating anyone, and a 5 game streak is a 5 game streak. Then Dallas caused them to crash back down to earth.

Here are the 4 other road wins this season: Miami by 2 (Nov 4), Boston by12??? (Jan 9), Chicago by 13 (Jan 25), and LA Clippers by 7 (Jan 28). Nothing special other than the Boston win, but that Boston win is a hell of a win if you are only going to have 6 on the season.

I'm pressed for time after writing 3,000 words on Rafer earlier today but wanted to get a quick preview up, so there it was.

Of note: It is not expected that Carl Landry will play tonight and it is up in the air if he will play Sunday. His presence or lack there of Sunday may or may not drive my prediction.

What's my prediction? 21 in a row, of at least 21 (We'll talk about the rest on Saturday or Sunday)