They had won six straight games and were turning some skeptics into believers that the small ball philosophy could work.
Just eight days ago, the Rockets were rolling and then the bottom fell out, head coach Mike D'Antoni said. The Rockets are searching for answers.
The loss to the Knicks was chalked up to playing down to the competition.
Then the Rockets came home three days later, in an important matchup against the Los Angeles Clippers, and gave another lackluster effort.
This one was more curious, given the Clippers place in the Western Conference standings and the Rockets' previous stated goal of attaining the No. 2 seed.
Missing 20 straight 3-pointers and getting worked defensively by a role player like Ivica Zubac, who scored a season-high 17 points against the Rockets, is not how you go about taking down the elite.
Against the Charlotte Hornets on Saturday, the Rockets got down 20-0 and never quite recovered.
There's really no excuse for it, even playing without Russell Westbrook and Eric Gordon. The Rockets are a better team.
They're also better than the Orlando Magic, but that didn't stop Houston from losing by 20 points at home.
D'Antoni and star James Harden agree this is rock bottom for the team.
Harden's missed 47 of his last 59 3-point attempts.
"Keep your head up," Harden said after Sunday's loss to the Magic, adding that it's frustrating to see everything going wrong.
Harden said it's an easy fix. But if that were true, the Rockets wouldn't be playing this way for an entire week.
A lot of issues are plaguing the Rockets: lack of confidence has them second-guessing (the Clippers loss hurt them mentally); Mike D'Antoni is still figuring out his rotations with the additions of Jeff Green and DeMarre Carroll and the injury issues with Eric Gordon; and then there's the inconsistency on defense.
The Rockets are supposed to be preparing themselves for "the bigger picture," as Harden said after the Clippers game.
Here's what that picture looks like:
With 19 games left to play, the Rockets have dropped from the No. 4 seed, aspiring to catch No. 2, to the No. 6 seed behind Chris Paul's Oklahoma City Thunder.
If the playoffs started today, the Rockets would go on the road to face the Denver Nuggets, a team that's actually competing for the second seed.
The bigger picture tells us that even once the Rockets break out of this slump, they are not a serious contender in the Western Conference or the league.
They can beat any team on any given night. That much the Rockets have demonstrated.
But they are also showing us they're capable of being outplayed by the Knicks, Hornets and Magic, and that they can't even get up for a nationally televised game against a team in the Clippers who everyone views as a legitimate contender.
P.J. Tucker said it's time for everybody to look in the mirror.
"It's easy to point fingers and say that this guy does this, or we're not doing this, and everybody has a solution," Tucker said. "I think at the end of the day if everybody takes care of themselves and coaches themselves then we'll be fine."
D'Antoni quoted Winston Churchill on Sunday night, saying "if you're going through hell, keep on going."
The Rockets, for all of their innovation and making the Westbrook experiment work this season, look like they're headed for a first-round exit if they keep playing this way.