The Rockets are on pace to have a Hall of Fame type season shooting .345 as a team.

No, that’s not right, the Rockets are Houston’s basketball team not a baseball team. Where a .345 team average is great on the diamond, it is just embarrassing on the hardwood.

This may seem a little harsh for just being the first game of the season, but the Rockets were never in this game.

The Nuggets had a record of 30-52 last year, while the Rockets were in the Western Conference Finals, but the roles were flip-flopped for last night’s seasons opener.

From the tip-off, the Rockets were chasing the Nuggets on the scoreboard starting with a 12-1 run to open the game. The closest the team would get to the Nuggets was in the second quarter where they cut the lead to two points after Patrick Beverley made consecutive threes.

In the fourth quarter, with nine minutes left in the game, the Nuggets went on a 6-0 run to seal the fate of the Rockets in Game 1 of 82.

The final tally was 105-85 in favor of the Denver Nuggets.

“They shot it much better than we did, they moved it better than we did, they executed better than we did,” Houston Coach Kevin McHale stated. “They played harder than we did. Really, there wasn’t anything I could look at in there and say we did better than they did.”

James Harden led the team with 22 points, but was 2 of 12 from behind the 3-point line and 6 of 21 overall.  Dwight Howard sat out the open serving a one game suspension for flagrant fouls in the play-offs last year. Danilo Gallinari scored 23 points, had 8 rebounds and 3 assist in the victory.

Up next for the Rockets is the Golden State Warriors on Friday.