{"id":515557,"date":"2026-01-04T06:51:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T06:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/515557\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T06:51:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T06:51:14","slug":"rockets-21-11-lose-in-dallas-as-alperen-sengun-sprains-right-ankle-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/515557\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets (21-11) lose in Dallas as Alperen Sengun sprains right ankle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The four-game winning streak for the Rockets (21-11) is now over, and both of Houston\u2019s primary centers are dealing with right ankle sprains.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>The Rockets lost All-Star center Alperen Sengun to a right ankle sprain in the opening minutes of Saturday\u2019s 110-104 road loss (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/game\/hou-vs-dal-0022500491\/box-score\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/game\/hou-vs-dal-0022500491\/box-score\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">box score<\/a>) to the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/dallas-mavericks\/6\/\" data-autotag=\"e6751d65-4a81-4131-973c-176d23467b30\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Dallas Mavericks<\/a>. Houston was already without veteran backup Steven Adams, who suffered his own right ankle sprain <a href=\"https:\/\/rocketswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/rockets\/2025\/12\/30\/rockets-injuries-alperen-sengun-probable-steven-adams-in-question\/87961979007\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/rocketswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/rockets\/2025\/12\/30\/rockets-injuries-alperen-sengun-probable-steven-adams-in-question\/87961979007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">earlier this week<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Houston (21-11) had its four-game winning streak snapped and fell to No. 4 in the tightly packed Western Conference <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/standings\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/standings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">standings<\/a>. The Mavs (13-23) remain in the No. 13 slot, with only two teams owning worse records.<\/p>\n<p>It was a cold-shooting night for the Rockets, who made just 10-of-41 shots (24.4%) from 3-point range. Between that and the absence of their top-two centers, even a 34-point, 7-assist game by Kevin Durant (53.8% FG) wasn\u2019t enough to save them.<\/p>\n<p>Jabari Smith Jr. and Reed Sheppard had particularly tough nights, combining to score just 15 points on 5-of-23 shooting (21.7%).<\/p>\n<p>For the hosts, Anthony Davis led the way with 26 points (60.0% FG), 12 rebounds, and 5 blocked shots.<\/p>\n<p>Next up for the Rockets is a return home to face the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/phoenix-suns\/21\/\" data-autotag=\"5b1d8499-f4c6-4857-a8e9-6d2e8a35bac3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Phoenix Suns<\/a> (20-14), with tipoff set for 7:00 p.m. Central on Monday night. The game will be\u00a0televised regionally\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/rocketswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/rockets\/2025\/12\/03\/for-first-time-rockets-offer-direct-to-consumer-game-streaming-plan\/87584057007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">on Space City Home Network (SCHN)<\/a>\u00a0and nationally via\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/go.skimresources.com\/?id=83224X1595658&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nba.com%2Fleague-pass-purchase&amp;xcust=story%2Fsports%2Fnba%2Frockets%2F2_u5OFie2AEgeJPrsNPzsEbOV&amp;sref=https%3A%2F%2Frocketswire.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2Fnba%2Frockets%2F2025%2F11%2F30%2Frockets-13-4-crush-jazz-as-kevin-durant-makes-uber-efficient-return%2F87537714007%2F\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA League Pass<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It is not yet clear whether Sengun or Adams will be available for that game. Both injuries appear to be day to day in nature, as both big men were able to put weight on their right leg while limping to the locker room.<\/p>\n<p>Adams could be more likely to return first, since his injury was suffered five days earlier.<\/p>\n<p class=\"related-link\">More: <a href=\"https:\/\/rocketswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/rockets\/2026\/01\/02\/kevin-durant-says-nba-fans-ruined-basketball-discourse\/88001411007\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Have NBA fans ruined basketball discourse? Kevin Durant thinks so<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The four-game winning streak for the Rockets (21-11) is now over, and both of Houston\u2019s primary centers are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[3503,1495,1307,7,686,149,4057,292,194,6175,2497,106,166,70,85,6,626,67,61,628,2065,472,2613,1081,211,876,639,6176,66,83,3502,962,604],"class_list":["post-515557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-mavericks","tag-adams","tag-alperen","tag-alperen-sengun","tag-basketball","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dallasmavericks","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-jabari","tag-jabari-smith-jr","tag-jr","tag-mavericks","tag-national","tag-national-sports","tag-nba","tag-negative","tag-news","tag-overall","tag-overall-negative","tag-phoenix","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-reed","tag-reed-sheppard","tag-rockets","tag-sengun","tag-sheppard","tag-smith","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-steven","tag-steven-adams","tag-suns"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115835508099628040","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515557","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=515557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}