Houston Rockets vs. Utah Jazz preseason game preview: start time, injuries, lineups, how to watch

Welcome back to another season of the Houston Rockets! Or at least another preseason for the Rockets.

Tonight the Rockets take on the Utah Jazz. These teams don't meet in the regular season until February, so it will be a while before the Rockets return to the Delta Center.

The majority of our readers are intelligent, so I don't need to engage in the “Hey, it's just preseason so don't take any of these games too seriously” diatribe. Obviously, Rockets fans are particularly excited to see the progress the young core has made. The other fun part of preseason is seeing the shiny new toys and seeing how they fit into the team's system.

Those shiny new toys are No. 3 overall pick Reed Sheppard and veteran center Steven Adams. Sheppard expects to come off the bench for this team. Meanwhile, Adams could start or play as a reserve. After missing about half of the 2022-23 season and all of last season due to a PCL injury, the Rockets could look to limit his minutes early in the season and let him sit out consecutively, especially with Jock Landale poised to to jump in these minutes.

For jazz, they have a lot of pieces they're going to try out. Cody Williams and Isaiah Collier were their first-round picks in the 2024 NBA Draft, and they still have three first-rounders left from the 2023 draft in Taylor Hendricks, Keyonte George and Brice Sensabaugh. George averaged 27 minutes per game last season, but Hendricks only appeared in 40 games. Utah is expected to tie for the bottom of the Western Conference this season with the Portland Trail Blazers.

Tip

8pm CT

Here's how to watch

Space City home network

Injury report

Rockets

None

jazz

Patty Mills GTD

The line (as of this post)

Missiles -4

We look forward because we can

Wednesday night in Oklahoma City against the Thunder