How good are the Houston Rockets?

They’re good enough to win seven out of eight including a 50-point trouncing of a much improved 76ers team, and not have anyone notice.

Of course, the Rockets were supposed to be good this year, the lone question was: Would they be good enough to upset the holy trinity of Dallas, Phoenix, and San Antonio, or would they be only good enough to make the playoffs somewhat interesting for a top team?

The funny thing is that after 68 games, it’s still not clear. The team figures to ride their superstar duo swingman Tracy McGrady and center Yao Ming, but T-Mac missed several games in the early going and just as he was rounding back into top form, Ming broke a bone in leg on December 23 and missed nearly 10 weeks.

His return has sparked the current winning streak, even though he’s not yet 100%. Initially, he wore a brace on his knee and looked slow and out of shape. Then after dislocating a finger on his right hand March 7, he’s worn a splint and struggled with his free throws. Despite the less than smooth return, he’s averaging 19.9 points and 9 boards in 29 minutes a contest. That’s impressive, but he was doing even better than that before the injury, notching almost 26 and 10 in comparable playing time.

So the Rockets are a .632 team that is likely to get a bit better between now and playoff time. This should set up one of the better dramas for the final weeks of the season, the race between the Rockets and Utah for home-court advantage in their first round matchup.

With a nine-game lead over second-place Denver in the Northwest Division and three-game deficit to red-hot San Antonio in the Western Conference, Utah is all but locked into the fourth seed currently. However, if Houston, even more securely locked into the fifth seed, finishes with a better regular-season record, the Rockets will get home-court advantage in their first-round series.

The Jazz lead by a game and a half, but all indicators point to Houston. The Rockets lead in point differential, 5.6 to 3.9, which argues that they will play better down the stretch. The Rockets schedule is light save for their game tonight with Detroit and their two games with Utah (they play Phoenix the final week of the season, but it’s hard to imagine the Suns starters will see much burn in that contest). Utah still has games at San Antonio and at Dallas.

And the clincher is that Yao is back.

Looking beyond the first round, the Rockets may get past Utah but should do no better than make Dallas’s life somewhat difficult in the second round (which is no knock on the Rockets — the Mavericks are just that good). That may make it seem as if Houston has only gotten back to the level of the 2004–05 Rocket team that took Dallas to seven games in their first-round series, but the longterm outlook is substantially brighter. The Rockets supporting cast is better and younger, with the notable exception of Dikembe Mutombo, who is still playing and may well return for another season.

The Rockets are playing an offense that is well suited to their lineup, with marksman launching threes to punish defenses that double team Yao or T-Mac. Only Phoenix shoots from behind the arc more per game; and more important, Houston trails only the Suns in accuracy from downtown. With more pickups like forward Chuck Hayes, a Development League find, and a solid draft, the Rockets could be in a position to make life uncomfortable for the big three next season and beyond.

***

At first glance, the news that the Raptors’ no. 1 draft pick, Andrea Bargnani, will be sidelined indefinitely might appear to open the door for the Knicks or Nets to contend for the Atlantic Division title.

Look closer: It won’t.

Bargnani, who underwent an emergency appendectomy yesterday morning, isn’t as big a loss for the team as it might seem. The rookie from Italy is averaging an impressive 14.7 points a game since the All-Star break, but the Raptors feature a deep lineup, and their success owes mostly to the continued development of forward Chris Bosh and guard Jose Calderon, the unexpected rise of point guard T.J. Ford, and the solid, if unspectacular, contributions of forward Jorge Garbajosa, guard Anthony Parker, and center Rasho Nesterovic.

Team president Bryan Colangelo has built a deep team that withstands injuries well. In December, the Raptors lost Bosh, their leading scorer and rebounder for 12 games and went 6–6. I wouldn’t expect any sort of late season swoon resulting from the loss of a far less important player.

mjohnson@nysun.com