NBA: Houston Rockets at Utah Jazz

We’re coming down to the last stretch of the season as teams are either fighting for a playoff spot or tanking for a lottery pick.  As the playoff teams prepare for the postseason they’re also very cautious of their star players particularly surrounding injuries.

Shay Marie

With that comes this news via ProBasketballTalk:

Dwight Howard will be out for the Rockets for at least 10 days to rest a sore ankle.

Danny Granger of the Los Angeles Clippers will miss the next three games due to a hamstring injury.

That means both will be out Saturday night when Houston and Los Angeles have a big showdown game — the four seed Rockets are one game back of the three seed Clippers (it’s 3.5 games back to five seed Portland).

If the Clippers can win on Saturday night, something more likely now (Patrick Beverly out with a torn meniscus), they will pretty much lock themselves into the three seed and the Rockets into the four spot.