The Houston Rockets and their misfiring superstar, James Harden, play host to the Denver Nuggets’ sneaky bunch.

The season series is tied at one game apiece. Denver hounded the Rockets in the first meeting but got trounced by 26 points in the second encounter.

HOME TEAM: Houston Rockets (26-16, 14-7 at home)

“Clutch City” is far from being clutch right now as they have dropped four-straight winnable games – three were against teams with a worse record and one where they squandered a double-digit, second-half lead at home.

James Harden has been playing like an absolute chucker over the past two weeks. Despite scoring 29.6 per game in his last six, he’s only shooting an appalling 33.1% in that span. On Tuesday, he missed 16 three-point attempts (1-for-17), an NBA record. It has only been done seven times in the league’s entire history and six of them were from Harden, all of which were done in the past year.

Russell Westbrook is probably the only reason that the Rockets are not being complete crap on the floor right now. He’s been a beast over his last five, averaging 32.4 points, 7.8 rebounds, 9.2 assists, and 1.6 steals per game on 55.9%-shooting.

ROAD TEAM: Denver Nuggets (30-13, 13-7 on the road)

The Nuggets returned to the win column on Tuesday following a 107-100 road victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves. They have now won five-straight on the road and four of their last five games, all despite Jamal Murray (ankle), Paul Millsap (knee), and Gary Harris (abductor) all out for the past week.

Denver has a variety of threats for any type of attack but Nikola Jokic is standing out as the most reliable against the Rockets. He’s averaging 24 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists per game in the two meetings and will again have an interesting match-up with Clint Capela.

Will Barton will remain as one of the secondary options with all the current injuries (21.7 PPG in his last three), along with Michael Porter Jr., who’s chipping in 16 PPG on 55.9%-shooting over his last five outings.

PREDICTION:

The Rockets break out of their slump with a 115-111 win. Russell Westbrook will continue to shine as he powers through the depleted Nuggets defense.