Houston Rockets (22-11, fifth in the Western Conference) vs. Portland Trail Blazers (17-20, ninth in the Western Conference)<\/p>\n
Portland, Oregon; Wednesday, 10 p.m. EST<\/p>\n
BOTTOM LINE: Portland is looking to keep its three-game win streak intact when the Trail Blazers take on Houston.<\/p>\n
The Trail Blazers are 14-13 in Western Conference games. Portland is second in the Western Conference with 14.3 offensive rebounds per game led by Donovan Clingan averaging 4.6.<\/p>\n
The Rockets are 12-10 in conference play. Houston scores 119.4 points and has outscored opponents by 8.4 points per game.<\/p>\n
The Trail Blazers average 14.2 made 3-pointers per game this season, 1.6 more made shots on average than the 12.6 per game the Rockets allow. The Rockets average 11.8 made 3-pointers per game this season, 0.6 fewer makes per game than the Trail Blazers give up.<\/p>\n
The teams square off for the second time this season. The Rockets won the last matchup 140-116 on Nov. 15, with Kevin Durant scoring 30 points in the victory.<\/p>\n
TOP PERFORMERS: Deni Avdija is shooting 46.8% and averaging 25.9 points for the Trail Blazers. Shaedon Sharpe is averaging 5.0 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n
Durant is averaging 25.7 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.6 assists for the Rockets. Jabari Smith Jr. is averaging 3.0 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n
LAST 10 GAMES: Trail Blazers: 6-4, averaging 111.7 points, 46.0 rebounds, 24.1 assists, 7.1 steals and 4.1 blocks per game while shooting 45.6% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 112.2 points per game.<\/p>\n
Rockets: 6-4, averaging 116.1 points, 49.0 rebounds, 25.4 assists, 7.8 steals and 6.0 blocks per game while shooting 49.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 110.5 points.<\/p>\n
INJURIES: Trail Blazers: Scoot Henderson: out (hamstring), Matisse Thybulle: out (thumb), Jrue Holiday: out (calf), Blake Wesley: out (foot), Jerami Grant: out (achilles), Damian Lillard: out for season (achilles).<\/p>\n
Rockets: Fred VanVleet: out for season (acl), Alperen Sengun: out (ankle).<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive<\/a> and data from Sportradar<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets (22-11, fifth in the Western Conference) vs. Portland Trail Blazers (17-20, ninth in the Western Conference)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3784],"tags":[72110,1297,2889,7,601,6,446,687,471,3967,66,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-520503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-72110","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-athlete-injuries","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-blazers","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nba-basketball","15":"tag-portland","16":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","17":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115849070484942220","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520503","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=520503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}