"Potential -- that's a bad word," he said. "Even though we're young, we never blame our losses or us playing bad on being young. We never do that. If we continue to think like we're one of the top teams, that's going to put us over the hump."

Oklahoma City's roster came into the season with an average age of 25 years and 130 days. Only the Grizzlies (25 and 92 days) are younger. The starting lineup of Durant, Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green, Thabo Sefolosha and Nenad Krstic averages out at 23 years and 179 days.

"I'd rather be young, young, young and have talented young guys knowing that if you develop them in the right way, they're going to get better," Thunder coach Scott Brooks said, "instead of having veteran guys that don't care, that just want to continue to play just because it's a good salary.

"I like the guys that we have here. We have a good group, but we have to continue to focus on getting better and our guys are doing it. They're coachable guys and they get along and they challenge each other every day in practice."

ROCKETS 105, THUNDER 94: Oklahoma City's losing streak reached three with Friday night's loss, which was also the first road setback of the season and ninth straight at Houston.

Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant had it going for the Thunder, scoring 33 and 27 points, respectively. But that was about it. None of their teammates scored more than Nick Collison's nine off the bench.

The Rockets were led by 21 points each from Trevor Ariza and Carl Landry. Houston has also won 11 straight in the series against the Thunder/Sonics franchise.