The Houston Rockets will play host to the San Antonio Spurs on Friday at Toyota Center.

The Rockets (45-27) were rolling as winners of 12 of 13 games, with their one loss coming in dramatic fashion to the Warriors, but that stretch came to a screeching halt Wednesday night when they headed to Memphis and lost by one point in overtime. Oddly enough, each of the Rockets' last three losses outside of Golden State have come against sub-.500 teams, with the Mavericks and Lakers rounding out the group. However, despite the surprising loss to the Grizzlies, the Rockets are still sitting fairly comfortable in third place in the Western Conference standings, as while they are just a half-game ahead of the fourth-place Trail Blazers, they are three whole games ahead of the Thunder, Clippers, Jazz and Spurs.

And while those Spurs' (42-30) chances of catching a team like the Rockets are certainly dwindling, all chances of it happening will certainly be gone if they can't get a victory Friday night. However, independent of its standing against the Rockets, San Antonio still needs every victory it can get down the stretch given that it is currently in a four-way tie in the bottom half of the standings. This is especially the case after their performance Thursday night at home against Miami, as the team's nine-game winning streak came to an end when they dropped the game to the Heat. A win, and the Spurs would be sitting alone as the No. 5 seed in the West.

This will be the fourth and final time the Spurs face the Rockets this season, with Houston winning each of the last two after dropping the first matchup in San Antonio.