HOUSTON -- In a game with plenty of playoff implications for the visitors but none for the home team, the Rockets lost Sunday's regular-season finale to the Denver Nuggets, 126-111 (box score).
By winning, Denver (50-32) secured the No. 4 spot in the Western Conference standings and the upcoming 2025 playoffs. Houston (52-30) was already locked at No. 2.
With a loss, the Nuggets could have fallen as low as No. 7, which would mean having to go through the West play-in tournament to advance to the playoffs. Instead, Denver ended up securing both a direct playoff berth and home-court advantage in at least the first round.
Courtesy of the Rockets' public relations (PR) department, here's a look at postgame statistics of note after Sunday's game. These include numerous statistics pertinent to the 2024-25 regular season as a whole, now that it is complete.
- Houston finished the regular season at 52-30 mark after going 41-41 in 2023-24 and winning a total of 59 games over three seasons from 2020-21 through 2022-23. Denver picked up its 50th win of the season and has recorded 50+ in each of the past three seasons.
- Denver is 39-8 when scoring 120+ points this season and 11-24 when scoring below. Houston only allowed 120+ points 14 times this season after doing so 28 times in 2023-24.
- Houston was out-rebounded by two on Sunday, but the Rockets finished 2024-25 with league-best differential of +6.3 per game. Dating back to 1996-97, the Rockets became the third team to have out-rebounded their opponent by a total of at least 500 rebounds in a season. The other two teams (Memphis in 2021-22; Oklahoma City in 2015-16) also had Steven Adams.
- The Rockets had 16 offensive rebounds Sunday and averaged a league-high 14.6 this season. Houston finished the season with a total of 1,200 offensive boards, which was the second-most by any team in a season dating back to 1998-99 (Golden State had 1,284 in 2002-03).
- Houston had seven players with 50+ games played who averaged at least 12.0 points per game this season. The 1981-82 Milwaukee Bucks are the only other team in NBA history who had seven players average at least 12.0 points with 40+ games played.
- Jalen Green was one of six NBA players to have started all 82 games this season. He also started all 82 games in 2023-24. The last Rocket to have started all 82 games in consecutive seasons was Luis Scola in 2008-09 and 2009-10. Green became the seventh different Houston player to have recorded at least 1,700 points, 350 rebounds, and 250 assists in a season (Steve Francis once; James Harden seven times, Elvin Hayes once, Tracy McGrady twice, Hakeem Olajuwon four times, Rudy Tomjanovich once).
- Alperen Sengun finished the 2024-25 season as one of four players to have averaged at least 19.0 points, 10.0 rebounds, and 4.0 assists (joining Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokić, and Domantas Sabonis). He also became the fifth player who was 22 or younger for the majority of a season to have posted those averages in NBA history (joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kevin Garnett, Oscar Robertson, and Sidney Wicks).
- Fred VanVleet had 333 ...
