{"id":491872,"date":"2025-12-23T22:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T22:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/491872\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T22:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T22:11:14","slug":"several-veterans-on-injury-report-for-rockets-clippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/491872\/","title":{"rendered":"Several Veterans on Injury Report for Rockets-Clippers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"66\">Tonight, the Houston Rockets are set to take on the LA Clippers, hoping to find some positive momentum in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"69\">The Rockets have seen their biggest slide of the season, dropping three out of their last four games to the Nuggets, Pelicans and Kings. Houston can&#8217;t be faulted for dropping to Nikola Jokic and Denver, though the other losses have come against two of the worst teams in the West.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6c\">Houston has also fallen to Dallas and Utah in recent weeks, dropping all the way to No. 6 in the Western Conference with the recent cold spell.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6f\">Suffice it to say, the Rockets desperately need a win against LA. The Clippers have seen an abysmal season so far, standing at just 7-21.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6i\">Here are the injury reports for both the Rockets and Clippers ahead of tonight&#8217;s game.<\/p>\n<p>Houston Rockets injuries:<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6o\">Dorian Finney-Smith \u2014 Out: Left ankle surgery<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6r\">Fred VanVleet \u2014 Out: Right ACL<\/p>\n<p>LA Clippers injuries:<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6x\">Bradley Beal \u2014 Out: Left hip fracture<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"70\">Derrick Jones Jr. \u2014 Out: Right knee sprain<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"73\">Chris Paul \u2014 Out: Not with team<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"76\">Ivica Zubac \u2014 Out: Left ankle sprain<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-14\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7b\">The Rockets again see their shortest injury report yet, with veterans in Dorian Finney-Smith and Fred VanVleet as the only two listed.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-15\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7e\">Neither has played for Houston this season, with VanVleet suffering a torn ACL in an offseason workout that\u2019s set to keep him out of the entire 2025-26 season, and Finney-Smith undergoing an offseason ankle surgery that\u2019s kept him out of play.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-16\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7h\">Finney-Smith is trending toward an early-2026 debut, a positive considering the Rockets could certainly use his shooting and defense on the wing.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-17\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7k\">&#8220;Dorian is improving,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/rockets\/onsi\/news\/dorian-finney-smith-nearing-rockets-debut\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">head coach Ime Udoka said in early December.<\/a> \u201cHe\u2019s starting to ramp it up a little bit. He\u2019ll get some live work in. Obviously, how he reacts to that determines when he gets back. It will be a little bit still. I think we\u2019re anticipating more around January hopefully, but he\u2019s getting into the phase of playing a little bit more now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-18\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7n\">Tari Eason has avoided the injury report after making his return, going for 16 points on 6-for-8 shooting, hitting all three of his 3-point attempts.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-19\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7q\">The Clippers have seen injuries to their own veterans this season. Guard Bradley Beal will miss the entire season due to a hip injury, and major contributors in Ivica Zubac and Derrick Jones Jr. are set to miss time as well.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-20\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7t\">The Rockets and Clippers tip off at 9:30 p.m. CT tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tonight, the Houston Rockets are set to take on the LA Clippers, hoping to find some positive momentum&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[7,559,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-491872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-clippers","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-clippers","12":"tag-laclippers","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-losangelesclippers","17":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115771178409032935","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}