Charlotte @ Houston preview

Last Meeting ( Oct 27, 2017 ) Houston 109, Charlotte 93

The Houston Rockets have not lost with Chris Paul in the lineup and don't appear to be ready to fall anytime soon. The NBA-best Rockets will try to push their winning streak to 11 in a row when they host the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday.

Houston is averaging 120.8 points during its 10-game winning streak and shot 54.5 percent from the floor in a 130-123 win over the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday. All but the last two of those 10 wins came by double figures, and Monday's win marked the start of a seven-game homestand. The Hornets didn't seem capable of mounting much of a challenge to Houston while dropping three in a row at home, but they began their two-game trip by knocking off the Oklahoma City Thunder 116-103 and are determined to pull out of the rut completely. "We've been struggling on the road," Charlotte forward Marvin Williams told the team's website. "We've been struggling overall, but we got a lot of fighters in that locker room. Things haven't been going the way we've wanted them to be going, but we're sticking together, we're continuing to fight and we really got a big-time win against a great OKC team."

TV: 9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN, AT&T SportsNet Southwest (Houston)

ABOUT THE HORNETS (10-16): Charlotte added some much-needed balance to its offense after leaning heavily on point guard Kemba Walker and placed all five starters in double figures while shooting 53.1 percent as a team on Monday. The biggest contributions came from the frontcourt, where Williams, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Dwight Howard combined to go 22-of-30 from the floor, led by Howard's team-high 23 points. Howard, who spent three seasons in Houston from 2013-2016, is averaging 23 points and 13 rebounds over the last three games while totaling 10 blocked shots.

ABOUT THE ROCKETS (21-4): Houston is led by James Harden and Paul, but the team is also getting solid work from its role players. Center Clint Capela scored a career-high 28 points on 13-of-14 shooting in Monday's win while Eric Gordon broke out of a slump with 27 points on 9-of-12 off the bench. Gordon was 13-of-67 from 3-point range over his previous nine games before finally catching a spark from beyond the arc and knocking down 5-of-6 against the Pelicans to mark his best scoring effort since a 29-point outing at Philadelphia on Oct. 25.

BUZZER BEATERS

1. Hornets SG Nicolas Batum (elbow) sat out Monday and is day-to-day.

2. Rockets PF Ryan Anderson averages 12 points but was held to five or fewer in three of the last four games.

3. Houston took the last three in the series, including a 109-93 win at Charlotte on Oct. 27 that featured a triple-double from Harden.

PREDICTION: Rockets 128, Hornets 113