Rockets Highlight Latest NBA Power Rankings

With the regular season winding down, the NBA landscape matters now more than ever as the playoffs approach. Forget what you think your team can be or how they were playing a few weeks ago, they're only as good as their most recent game. By this logic, the Houston Rockets are in a major sweet spot right now.

Houston is riding a three-game winning streak and is 9-1 in its last 10 games. After a rough month of February basketball, the Rockets have surged back in March to reclaim the second seed in the second seed in the Western Conference. They're 12-4 this month.

The Rockets are (finally) now one of the more talked about teams in the league, evident in NBA.com's latest power rankings from John Schuhmann. After placing eighth in last week's rankings, Houston has moved all the way up to fourth, in company with title contenders such as the Oklahoma City Thunder, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Boston Celtics. The team also passes the Golden State Warriors, who get pushed down to fifth.

"The Rockets rank in the top five on both ends of the floor over the 12-1 stretch, with the bigger improvement obviously coming on offense," Schuhmann wrote. "The improvement has been mostly about shooting (both in the paint and outside it), but the Rockets have also somehow been a better offensive rebounding team over these last 13 games (offensive rebounding percentage of 38.4%) than they were prior (36.2%)."

Houston ranks fourth in defensive rating, something the team has prided itself on all season long. However, perhaps the more impressive statistic is the Rockets jumping to 11th in offensive rating.

The narrative surrounding this team for the past few seasons was 'good defense, poor offense.' However, this season, the Rockets have generally been efficient on that side of the floor, minus February's production woes.

There is a legitimate reason to believe that the Rockets are title contenders because of that. Houston has shown holes in the offense at times, but the team can control the game tremendously on the defensive end. It starts with elite wings such as Amen Thompson, Dillon Brooks, and Jalen Green.

The Rockets will continue their final stretch of regular-season games tonight against the Los Angeles Lakers. These next seven games will be crucial for seeding, seeing how tough their schedule is.