Houston @ New Orleans preview

Last Meeting ( Jan 26, 2018 ) Houston 113, New Orleans 115

The Houston Rockets are winners of 20 of their last 21 games and are cruising toward the top seed in the Western Conference and the top overall seed in the NBA playoffs. The New Orleans Pelicans, who host the Rockets on Saturday, are in a much more tenuous position among a group of teams fighting between No. 4 and No. 10 in the West.

Houston knocked off potential West playoff opponents in each of the last two games, beating San Antonio and the Los Angeles Clippers at home, and will face three more on the road trip with stops at Minnesota and Portland after New Orleans. The road trip is the longest remaining excursion of the regular season for the Rockets, who play eight of their final 11 games at home. The Pelicans enter play on Friday in sixth place in the West, one game behind the fourth-place Oklahoma City Thunder but just 1 1/2 games clear of the 10th-place Denver Nuggets. New Orleans is not having much success against teams in the playoff race of late and dropped three of its last four, including a 98-93 setback on Thursday at a San Antonio squad that trails it in the West.

TV: 7 p.m. ET, AT&T SportsNet Southwest (Houston), FS New Orleans

ABOUT THE ROCKETS (54-14): Houston MVP frontrunner James Harden is just 4-of-19 from 3-point range over the last two games but the Rockets are still winning while leaning on an improving defense. They held the last three opponents to an average of 90.3 points and limited the Clippers to 4-of-18 from 3-point range in Thursday's win. Houston center Clint Capela is anchoring that defense and recorded six blocks on Thursday to boost his season average to 1.8.

ABOUT THE PELICANS (39-29): If Harden has any competition for the MVP Award this season, one of the best candidates to supplant him as the frontrunner is New Orleans forward Anthony Davis, who is averaging 28 points, 11.2 rebounds and 2.4 blocks. Davis delivered 21 points and 14 boards on Thursday but fouled out for the first time this season. "We had opportunities to win," Davis told reporters. "We were down three for a while and we got some bad shots, some shots that we normally make that we missed. They were coming down and missing as well, so we had opportunities to cut the lead or even take the lead late in the fourth, but we didn't."

BUZZER BEATERS

1. Pelicans owner Tom Benson passed away Thursday at the age of 90.

2. Rockets SG Eric Gordon went 0-of-7 from the field on Monday but bounced back with 23 points on 8-of-13 shooting in Thursday's win.

3. The home team took the first two meetings, with New Orleans earning a 115-113 win on Jan. 26 behind 27 points and 11 rebounds from Davis.

PREDICTION: Rockets 103, Pelicans 92