Following their second blowout loss in four days, the Houston Rockets hardly resemble Western Conference contenders despite being tied for the third seed behind a pair of league juggernauts.

After surrendering a season-high 145 points on the road to the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday, the Rockets were blitzed by the Denver Nuggets in a 36-point loss on Wednesday. Houston will open a five-game homestand against the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday, squarely in the mix for third in the West with the Los Angeles Lakers, Minnesota Timberwolves and the Nuggets.

The Rockets haven’t passed the eye test of late. Denver hung 129 points on the Rockets, the third-highest point total Houston has surrendered this season. Defensively, the Rockets are tied for seventh in the NBA in defensive efficiency, but have sustained regression on that end of the court.

Offensively, Houston ranks 11th, but the wild swings in performance have become noteworthy. The Rockets are among the worst teams in the league in turnover percentage (28th) and their offensive rebounding has collapsed since the mid-January loss of reserve center Steven Adams to season-ending ankle surgery.

Combine poor ball security and pedestrian rebounding with the poor shooting the Rockets endured in Denver, and the results are often cataclysmic.

The Rockets missed 29 of 33 3-pointers and made just 5 of 14 free throws. A six-point halftime deficit ballooned in the third quarter when the Rockets were outscored 40-22, with their spirit sapped by a succession of missed shots that compromised their defensive intensity.

Opponents have clamped down on Kevin Durant, the Rockets’ leading scorer, and dared his teammates to convert open looks. That strategy has proven to be effective more often than not.

“At this point of the season, we do need to be able to exploit double teams and hit some blitzes on Kevin,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “And I think we did that for the most part. If you don’t turn it over and you get quality shots, whether it’s at the rim or 3-pointers, you kind of have to live with those. When the shots didn’t go…I think we started to hang our heads a little bit.”

Said Durant, who had a season-low-tying 11 points in 26 minutes: “Our offense was clicking outside of making wide-open shots. We generated good looks. It’s a make-or-miss league.”

The Pelicans improved to 7-4 since the All-Star break with their 122-111 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday. Dejounte Murray delivered a stellar performance with 27 points, five rebounds, six assists, and two steals in what was his seventh game of an injury-plagued year.

Murray has not only infused the Pelicans’ rotation with an accomplished veteran since his return from an Achilles injury, but also provided a measure of leadership that his younger teammates can rally around.

“We’re trying to build winning habits,” Murray said. “We’re not the No. 1 team in the West. We’re not a contender in the West, but what we can do is build winning habits and momentum going into the offseason.

” … You’ve got to start somewhere. … There’s nothing like building momentum going into the offseason.”

–Field Level Media

Fox averaged 5.02 million viewers — the largest viewership number for any World Baseball Classic game in the event’s 20-year history — for Monday’s 5-3 U.S. victory over Mexico, the network announced Thursday.

It surpassed the previous record of 4.48 million average viewers for the 2023 WBC final, which saw Japan beat the U.S. 3-2.

The Mexico matchup was also a sizable jump in viewership from the first two United States games against Brazil and Great Britain, which drew 2.64 million and 2.98 million viewers, respectively.

With the U.S. advancing to the quarterfinals despite losing its pool-play finale to Italy, that viewership bump could quite possibly carry over to the knockout portion of the WBC. The majority of the 78 major league players who left spring training to compete for the countries are still in contention.

The U.S. will face Canada — which is making its first appearance in the WBC quarterfinals — Friday night, with South Korea and the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Italy, and Venezuela and Japan also facing off in the quarterfinal round.

The semifinals are set for Sunday and Monday, and the championship will be contested on Tuesday in Miami.

–Field Level Media

One half of the BNP Paribas Open’s own final four is set, as Linda Noskova and Aryna Sabalenka will do battle after prevailing in quarterfinal matchups Thursday at Indian Wells, Calif.

The world’s No. 1 player, Sabalenka shook off a slow start to down Canada’s Victoria Mboko 7-6 (0), 6-4 in 109 minutes. It was Sabalenka’s second win this season over Mboko, after the two squared off in the Australian Open in January.

Though she showed a notable advantage on service points, winning 68% to Mboko’s 61%, Sabalenka credited her success on break points (5-for-5 on saves) for the victory.

“I feel like the moment (when) I will feel relaxed, I will definitely start losing. So I felt that’s why I have been really successful in those tiebreaks, because I take it really serious,” Sabalenka said. “I’m not focusing on the past. I’m just trying to take it once again one point at a time.”

A two-time runner-up at this event, Sabalenka of Belarus next faces The Czech Republic’s Noskova.

Noskova, ranked 14th, also had to work for her win, edging Australia’s Talia Gibson 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 in 97 minutes.

After a first set that went by the script for the most part, Noskova ran into trouble in the second, as neither player could shake free of the other holding serve. Gibson used a first-game break to establish the early edge, then rode that to the second set win.

Noskova used three aces to regain control in the third.

Sabalenka won her only meeting with Noskova, 6-3, 7-6 (4), at the 2023 Adelaide International final.

In a matchup between the world’s Nos. 9 and 2 players, Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina battles Poland’s Iga Swiatek for a spot in the other semifinal later in the day. That winner will face Jessica Pegula (No. 5) or Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina (No. 3), who also face off in late Thursday action.

–Field Level Media