{"id":609362,"date":"2026-02-18T07:23:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T07:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/609362\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T07:23:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T07:23:16","slug":"houston-takes-on-charlotte-seeks-5th-straight-road-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/609362\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston takes on Charlotte, seeks 5th straight road win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston Rockets<\/a> (33-20, fourth in the Western Conference) vs. Charlotte Hornets<\/a> (26-29, ninth in the Eastern Conference)<\/p>\n

Charlotte, North Carolina; Thursday, 7 p.m. EST<\/p>\n

Rockets -2.5; over\/under is 216.5<\/p>\n

BOTTOM LINE: Houston hits the road against Charlotte looking to extend its four-game road winning streak.<\/p>\n

The Hornets have gone 12-14 in home games. Charlotte averages 15.0 turnovers per game and is 6-8 when it wins the turnover battle.<\/p>\n

The Rockets are 15-13 in road games. Houston averages 14.3 turnovers per game and is 13-5 when committing fewer turnovers than opponents.<\/p>\n

The Hornets average 15.4 made 3-pointers per game this season, 3.1 more made shots on average than the 12.3 per game the Rockets give up. The Rockets are shooting 47.1% from the field, 0.1% lower than the 47.2% the Hornets’ opponents have shot this season.<\/p>\n

The teams play for the second time this season. The Hornets won the last meeting 109-99 on Feb. 6. Kon Knueppel<\/a> scored 24 points to help lead the Hornets to the victory.<\/p>\n

TOP PERFORMERS: Knueppel is averaging 18.9 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.6 assists for the Hornets. Brandon Miller<\/a> is averaging 22.4 points over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

Alperen Sengun<\/a> is scoring 20.7 points per game and averaging 9.4 rebounds for the Rockets. Jabari Smith<\/a> Jr. is averaging 2.3 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

LAST 10 GAMES: Hornets: 9-1, averaging 114.6 points, 48.1 rebounds, 25.8 assists, 6.6 steals and 4.2 blocks per game while shooting 45.7% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 106.2 points per game.<\/p>\n

Rockets: 6-4, averaging 104.8 points, 47.9 rebounds, 23.8 assists, 9.5 steals and 6.6 blocks per game while shooting 43.7% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 104.6 points.<\/p>\n

INJURIES: Hornets: Coby White<\/a>: out (calf), Liam McNeeley<\/a>: day to day (ankle).<\/p>\n

Rockets: Fred VanVleet<\/a>: out for season (acl), Dorian Finney-Smith<\/a>: day to day (rest), Steven Adams<\/a>: out for season (ankle).<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive<\/a> and data from Sportradar<\/a>.br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets (33-20, fourth in the Western Conference) vs. Charlotte Hornets (26-29, ninth in the Eastern Conference) Charlotte,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3794],"tags":[81011,7,473,130,292,194,4066,6,211],"class_list":{"0":"post-609362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-rockets","8":"tag-81011","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-charlotte-hornets","11":"tag-espn","12":"tag-houston","13":"tag-houston-rockets","14":"tag-houstonrockets","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-rockets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116090437823564974","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609362","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=609362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}