Morey: 'We'll definitely be 1 of the teams that no one wants to play'

The Houston Rockets were dealt another bout of disappointment on Friday when LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers steamrolled them in their own building to end the first half of the season one game above .500.

The Rockets got to 22-20 with a win against the hapless Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday, but there remain countless questions regarding the direction of the Rockets, a team you might recall, that advanced to the Western Conference finals last season.

Such a playoff adventure seems hopeless at the moment. Houston's defense, lauded last season for its improvement, has been awful again. Dwight Howard is only now starting to show flashes of the old Superman and coach J.B. Bickerstaff has to prove he can lead this erratic crew with no previous head coaching experience.

Still, Rockets general manager Daryl Morey believes the team he's built through constant tinkering, can again be a threat in the West, as he told Brian Smith of the Houston Chronicle:

After Houston rallied from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Los Angeles Clippers in the second round, Chris Paul and company might like another shot at Houston.

Which would be just fine with the Rockets, who currently sit in seventh place, but because of a weaker-than-normal conference, are only one game out of fifth.

And fifth could well garner a first-round matchup against the fourth-place Clippers. That is highly preferred to finishing seventh or eighth and having to face either Golden State or San Antonio, or even finishing sixth, which could be a matchup against Oklahoma City.

Morey's right, the Rockets will make the playoffs. Barring injury, they're way too talented to miss the postseason, especially this season. But if the Rockets, who have beaten the Thunder, the Clippers twice and the Spurs so far this season, are going to be a team that no one will want to face come mid-April, they're going to have to turn the corner on consistency.