Tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET the busy day of NBA postseason action concludes with the West's No. 4 seed Houston Rockets hosting the No. 5 Portland Trailblazers at the Toyota Center on TNT. Live stream the game here free; Rockets fans can tune in to the radio broadcast on KBME, while Blazers fans can do the same on 1190 KEX Portland.
The Rockets made the playoffs last year and were eliminated by star guard James Harden's former mates in Round 1 despite injuring OKC point guard Russell Westbrook. Harden said the defeat was a learning experience, but the time is now for a title run.
"I think last year that first-round playoff series gave us a little taste of what it feels like to be in the playoffs," Harden said. "So hopefully we're familiar with the playoffs and whatnot and we go out there and just play basketball."
Chandler Parsons sounded a similar tune-- "Just being here is not good enough," Parsons said. "We want to win and we want to contend for a championship and we want to be the last team standing."
They added Dwight Howard in the offseason, a dominant defensive center with plenty of postseason minutes logged. "I just try to lead these guys by example," Howard said. "Just give the guys some words of advice, but make sure they're also confident that we can win this series and win the whole thing."
Many of the Blazers, including catalyst Damian Lillard, have not been to the playoffs yet. Lillard said he is going to try and treat these games like he would any other, but time will tell if he's able to do that.
"I'm just going to try to go into it and play it like another basketball game," Lillard said, "and not put too much pressure on the fact that it's my first playoff game or that we're on the road or all those other things."
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