The Houston Rockets were easily the NBA's most dominant team during the regular season. The addition of Chris Paul and a couple of key veterans on the wing this offseason allowed them to improve by over ten wins from a year ago.
The Minnesota Timberwolves also made some major moves this offseason by trading for Jimmy Butler and signing veterans Jeff Teague, Taj Gibson and Jamal Crawford in free agency. The Wolves were able to tread water while Butler missed time with an injury and clinched their first playoff appearance since 2004 with an overtime win over the Nuggets on the last day of the regular season.
The Rockets boast the league's best net rating thanks to their number one-ranked offense and sixth-ranked defense.
Houston's offense
Houston's offense is led by the MVP favorite James Harden who leads the league in scoring at 30.4 points per game and player efficiency rating. He and Chris Paul make up the league's best backcourt as CP3 has led the league in real plus-minus this season.
Jimmy Butler will get the honor of trying to defend Harden during this series. Butler finally looked healthy in the Timberwolves' final regular season game, and he'll get a couple of days to rest before the beginning of this series.
The Rockets completely owned Minnesota during the regular season going 4-0 against the Wolves with all of those wins by a margin of at least nine points.
Three-point shooting
Houston's three-point shooting make them a difficult matchup for the Wolves. Minnesota ranks dead last in three-point attempts and three-point field goals per game while the Rockets rank number one in the NBA in both of those categories.
The Wolves usually make up for that deficiency at the free throw line with the third-most free throws made per game, but Houston is also better than Minnesota in that category.
The only hope the Wolves have in this series is that the playoff pressure surrounding the Rockets makes them play tight.
James Harden's season ended in disaster last year as he essentially disappeared in Houston's loss to the Kawhi Leonard-less Spurs in game six as the Rockets lost by nearly 40 points.
Harden isn't the only player on this team with playoff demons to slay as Chris Paul has never made it to the Conference Finals in his 13-year career.
CP3 has put up some great numbers in his playoff career, but the memories of the Clippers' 3-1 collapse against the Rockets in 2015 and turning it over twice in the last 14 seconds of a crucial Game 5 loss to the Thunder in 2014 have to linger in the back of his mind.
Head coach Mike D'Antoni also wants to get over the hump in the playoffs as he's enjoyed tremendous regular season success without ever making it to an NBA Finals in his head coaching career.
Regardless of the ghosts of playoffs past, the Wolves don't match up well with Houston at all and the Rockets should take care of them in five games.
