As we enter 2018, the Houston Rockets find themselves in a tough stretch of the season. What are some New Year’s resolutions the team should strive for?

As 2018 begins, the Houston Rockets currently sit at 26-9, good for second place in the Western Conference. Looking at the season as a whole, you would have to say it has been a very successful couple of months for the Rockets. However, if you were to just look at the past two weeks or so, you would be concerned about their recent play.

That is because the Rockets are just 5-5 in their last 10 games and just snapped a five-game losing streak by defeating the Los Angeles Lakers in double overtime. Gone is the elite play on both ends of the floor and a healthy nine-man rotation. Instead, the Rockets have found themselves struggling on the defensive end and missing key players on a nightly basis.

With that being said, what are some New Year’s resolutions Houston should strive for as we enter 2018 and the “second” half of the NBA season? Let’s take a look at a couple that could really make a difference for the Rockets moving forward.

1) Improve defensively

Due to a combination of injuries and poor effort, the Rockets have simply been terrible on the defensive end over the past two weeks. Since Luc Mbah a Moute went down with a shoulder injury on Dec. 14, Houston owns the 29th-ranked defense in the league, posting a defensive rating of 112.3.

During that time, both Chris Paul and Clint Capela missed a couple of games, which, when added to Mbah a Moute’s absence, takes away three of the best (and most important) defenders on the team. However, there has still been a decrease in effort on a consistent basis on that end, as the Rockets gave up over 120 points to poor offensive teams in the Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers (who were missing several key players themselves).

Because of this recent stretch of poor defense, the Rockets have dropped out of the top 10 on that end of the floor, and currently sit at 11th (per Cleaning The Glass, which excludes garbage time).

If the Rockets want to have a serious chance of even making the conference finals to challenge the Golden State Warriors, they must get back to playing good defense on a consistent basis.A key reason for their decline may be fatigue from the key rotational players such as Trevor Ariza, Eric Gordon and James Harden, so perhaps Houston will revert back to its defensive play from earlier in the season when it was fully healthy.

However, there is something to be said about building bad habits and getting comfortable in them, which is something the Rockets did way too often last season. This season they have the defenders to post a top-10 defensive rating, it just comes down to getting healthy and regaining the consistent effort on that end of the floor.

2) Cut down minutes for key players

This isn’t as much as a resolution due to the fact that it relies on the team actually being healthy in order to happen. However, we all expect the Rockets to have the majority (if not all) of their rotation back and playing sometime this month, and if they can stay healthy, that would provide an opportunity for Mike D’Antoni to achieve this resolution.

Because of injuries to Mbah a Moute, Paul and Capela, other key rotational players have had to shoulder bigger minutes and offensive burdens. In the past five games, Trevor Ariza has played an average of 40.4 minutes per game, while Harden has played 37.8 and Eric Gordon has played 37.4, well above his season average of 32.5 minutes per game.

P.J. Tucker has had to play more, which has led his effectiveness to decrease on the defensive end as he struggles with his shot (he is shooting just 28.6 percent on 3-pointers in December).

The lack of healthy players even led to the signing of Gerald Green, who has provided a capable scoring punch and (somewhat) competent defense in the three games he has played for the team. It’s simply impossible to ask D’Antoni to cut down on minutes at this point. Playing end of the bench players such as Zhou Qi and Bobby Brown is asking to tank games. Unfortunately, despite having a high-quality eight or nine man rotation, once you get past that, it can get pretty ugly for the Rockets.

That is why when the team finally gets healthy later this month, D’Antoni can start cutting down the minutes for players like Harden, Ariza, Paul and Gordon. After all, the Rockets know that they will be judged by what they do in the playoffs, not how many regular season wins they have.

If the Rockets can achieve both of these resolutions, look for them to secure a top-two seed in the conference and be one of the best teams on both ends of the floor entering the playoffs.