Late for the party? That’s OK; it’s just now really getting fun

Hi there, Houston sports fans. Welcome to the NBA season. Nice of you to join us.

I know … the Rockets’ first jump ball was in mid-October, but many of you just now noticed that, for the first time in more than 20 years, Houston has a championship-level basketball team.

My goodness, there are even pictures of Rockets players on the front page of the newspaper. Get used to it.

You should have been here all along.

I’m not chastising here. Certainly, priorities for a number of you were thrown out of whack by Hurricane Harvey, the aftermath of which diminished your interest in the NBA regular season. You are excused.

Some of you were too busy with the Astros’ World Series run and parade and Justin Verlander’s wedding and

George Springer’s wedding and spring training and the championship banner unveiling and the World Series ring ceremony and the slump that has them in first place right now.

I get it. For you, baseball is a year-round sport. That’s too bad. You don’t know that James Harden is capable of the same greatness as Jose Altuve.

Now, I will admonish the sad sacks who soldiered up week after week to watch the Texans’ season go down the tubes. You’re so Savage — see what I did there? — but do better.

While the Texans have been roller coastering through the years with suspect management decisions, the Rockets are one of the best-run organizations in sports.

Maybe those of you trying to catch up monitored the Rockets’ scores and progress, but as the puny regular-season television ratings indicate, you didn’t watch many games.

You probably figured you would pay attention if and when the games got serious.

This is Choke City, so I understand. But too bad for you.

You heard the Golden State Warriors, the pretty boys from Northern California who have won two of the previous three championships, were coming to town, and you were finally excited about the NBA?

Unfortunately, if you watched Monday, you tuned in on the wrong night.

Different breed of Rockets

If you are new to watching these Rockets, they are not the Kevin McHale Rockets or the Rick Adelman Rockets or the Jeff Van Gundy Rockets.

They aren’t even the 2017 Mike D’Antoni Rockets.

This team is the best Rockets team since they won back-toback championships in 1994 and ’95.

The Rockets haven’t just had their best season thus far; they had the best regular season in the history of Houston professional sports, and you missed it.

They aren’t just fun to watch — they are capable. Don’t doubt them.

Nasty and tough, talented and rough, the Rockets have stood tall against all challenges this season.

The Monday mess, when the Rockets looked sluggish and slow, was not what the rest of us have seen all season. Hopefully, you learned that lesson with their inspired effort that resulted in a 127-105 win on Wednesday.

D’Antoni said the Rockets got “bogged down” in Game 1 of the best-of-seven series. How did they get out of it? Positraction. What is positraction?

It’s a limited slip differential that distributes the ability to score points equally throughout the lineup. (Yes, I borrowed that from Mona Lisa Vito.)

Virgin viewers were upset at the so-called hero ball the Rockets played on Monday. You didn’t know enough about the team to realize that wasn’t who they are.

There was no need to panic, even if from your vantage point, watching the high-powered Rockets’ collapse was like opening a door just in time to see the floor being sucked into the ground.

Even professional prognosticators demanded that the Rockets change their entire game plan against the unbeatable Warriors.

Clearly, they don’t know the Rockets that well either.

They hadn’t even noticed that the Rockets play a lot of hero ball because they have a couple legitimate heroes on the team.

Harden and Chris Paul are among the best in the league at breaking down a defender. The Rockets like Harden’s and Paul’s chances in one-on-one matchups.

They often clear out room for Harden or Paul to go to work against a single opponent. They’ll set a pick for them to get an even more favorable matchup, then watch the magic.

Dynamic duo

Harden and Paul are among the most dynamic players the NBA has ever seen.

If you’re ever around a fan who complains about Harden doing too much … run. There’s a good chance that person’s not well.

“We're not going to change anything up,” D’Antoni said. “That would be silly on my part to panic. You don't do that. We're very comfortable about who we are, and we can beat anybody anywhere at any time playing the way we play. Some people might not like it, you know? Hey, sorry.” The Rockets aren’t sorry. Of course, P.J. Tucker and Trevor Ariza aren’t the superstar-level players they played like in Game 2. Surely the history-chasing Warriors will be better, and they will probably win at least one of the next two games by a comfortable margin.

Kevin Durant and Steph Curry are on the same page of all-time greats as Harden and Paul, and the Warriors’ championship pedigree wasn’t beat out of them by one loss. They will bring he fight to the Rockets in Games 3 and 4 in Oakland.

But these Rockets don’t fold and fret when facing a test. They have a scheme that works; a system that fits. They are much closer to being the unbeatable team they were on Wednesday than the beaten team they were on Monday.

There isn’t a lot of basketball left, and did you miss a whole lot of fun, but there is a chance you haven’t missed the best of the Rockets. Welcome in. Enjoy the party.