Mavericks vs Rockets Preview, Injury Report, and Game Thread: Hello, old friends

State rivals clash in a Friday night contest

The Dallas Mavericks (33-34) are on the road Friday night for a clash against the Houston Rockets (41-25). Dallas is on a tour against their in-state rivals, splitting two recent contests against the San Antonio Spurs. The Rockets are riding a four game winning streak, most recently defeating the hapless Phoenix Suns. Here’s the main things to know tonight:

• WHO: Dallas Mavericks at Houston Rockets
• WHAT: Bring it on, Houston!
• WHERE: Frost Bank Center, San Antonio, Texas
• WHEN: 7:00 pm CST
• HOW: KFAA, MavsTV, and Playback with Kirk and David

The injury report! Holy crap it’s bad! Here are the players who are out: Anthony Davis, Dereck Lively, Kyrie Irving, Daniel Gafford, Jaden Hardy, Kai Jones, Olivier Maxence Prosper, and PJ Washington. Kidd had hoped Washington might play when he spoke to the media Wednesday but that’s clearly changed. Brandon Williams and Dante Exum are each playing, despite recent injury issues.

Well… We’re staring at some ugly basketball. The Rockets are not a team that messes around, and this is not the same Dallas team that they played after the Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis trade. Our best hope is Houston comes out sleepy and Dallas connects on a ton of threes. Get ready for very weird basketball!

As you can tell below, you can join me and some other Mavs Moneyball guys in a room on Playback (embedded below) during the game (though I may not be able to start it until halftime). Also, consider joining Josh and I on Pod Maverick live after the game on YouTube, we should start after the game. Thanks so much for spending time with us here at Mavs Moneyball. Let’s go Mavs!