{"id":654026,"date":"2026-03-12T06:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T06:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/654026\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T06:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T06:28:18","slug":"houston-faces-conference-rival-new-orleans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/654026\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston faces conference rival New Orleans"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Orleans Pelicans<\/a> (22-45, 12th in the Western Conference) vs. Houston Rockets<\/a> (40-25, third in the Western Conference)<\/p>\n

Houston; Friday, 8 p.m. EDT<\/p>\n

BOTTOM LINE: The New Orleans Pelicans take on Kevin Durant<\/a> and the Houston Rockets in Western Conference action Friday.<\/p>\n

The Rockets are 6-6 against the rest of their division. Houston ranks third in the Western Conference with 52.4 points per game in the paint led by Alperen Sengun<\/a> averaging 13.7.<\/p>\n

The Pelicans are 6-7 against the rest of the division. New Orleans is eighth in the Western Conference scoring 115.6 points per game and is shooting 46.5%.<\/p>\n

The Rockets average 114.2 points per game, 5.8 fewer points than the 120.0 the Pelicans allow. The Pelicans are shooting 46.5% from the field, 0.6% higher than the 45.9% the Rockets’ opponents have shot this season.<\/p>\n

The two teams square off for the third time this season. The Rockets defeated the Pelicans 119-110 in their last meeting on Jan. 19. Jabari Smith<\/a> Jr. led the Rockets with 32 points, and Trey Murphy III<\/a> led the Pelicans with 21 points.<\/p>\n

TOP PERFORMERS: Durant is shooting 51.4% and averaging 25.9 points for the Rockets. Reed Sheppard<\/a> is averaging 3.9 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

Murphy is averaging 22.1 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.6 steals for the Pelicans. Saddiq Bey<\/a> is averaging 20.7 points and 5.2 rebounds over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

LAST 10 GAMES: Rockets: 6-4, averaging 113.9 points, 47.0 rebounds, 25.4 assists, 7.9 steals and 5.8 blocks per game while shooting 49.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 113.0 points per game.<\/p>\n

Pelicans: 7-3, averaging 121.0 points, 46.9 rebounds, 26.2 assists, 8.9 steals and 6.8 blocks per game while shooting 47.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 116.0 points.<\/p>\n

INJURIES: Rockets: Jae’Sean Tate<\/a>: out (knee), Fred VanVleet<\/a>: out for season (acl), Steven Adams<\/a>: out for season (ankle), Dorian Finney-Smith<\/a>: out (ankle).<\/p>\n

Pelicans: Bryce McGowens<\/a>: out (toe).<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

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

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Orleans Pelicans (22-45, 12th in the Western Conference) vs. Houston Rockets (40-25, third in the Western Conference)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[84427,7,130,194,6,470],"class_list":{"0":"post-654026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-84427","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-houston-rockets","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116214792706169269","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654026","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=654026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}