NBA games of the week: Season starts now

Monday, Dec. 25: Houston at Oklahoma City, 8:00 p.m. ET

Dare I say, the Thunder are figuring it out? After a 2-9 start to the season in games with clutch situations — games within five points in the final five minutes — the Thunder are 7-1 since. They’re still 9-10 on the season, but they’re over .500 for the first time since they were 4-3 back in October and are three games over for the first time this season. They still have issues on offense that won’t seem to go away, and they still rely too heavily on Russell Westbrook’s triple-doubles. But they’ll battle the Celtics for the best defensive rating, which is a great buttress until their offense hopefully picks up, which we’ve all said a hundred times now.

The Rockets continue their blitz on the league with the addition of Chris Paul. Their defense has performed well, too. Paul and Harden will get the superstar credit, but with P.J. Tucker and Luc Mbah a Moute adding not only depth but defensive tenacity, and the breakout of Clint Capela, the Rockets are a really good team. I said from the beginning of the season we never saw a Mike D’Antoni offense with two point guards so capable of handling the offensive burdens of his system. I’ll still take the Warriors in a series until they lose, but in seven games, is it crazy to think the Rockets don’t just make everything at least three of them? Then again, they did just lose back-to-back games against the Lakers and Clippers despite 51 points from Harden in each. Hmm, maybe I should rethink the defense thing…