{"id":107468,"date":"2025-12-24T07:36:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T07:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/107468\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T07:36:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T07:36:07","slug":"los-angeles-hosts-houston-in-christmas-day-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/107468\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles hosts Houston in Christmas day action"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston Rockets<\/a> (17-9, sixth in the Western Conference) vs. Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> (19-9, fourth in the Western Conference)<\/p>\n

Los Angeles; Thursday, 8 p.m. EST<\/p>\n

Rockets -4.5; over\/under is 228.5<\/p>\n

BOTTOM LINE: The Los Angeles Lakers take on the Houston Rockets.<\/p>\n

The Lakers are 14-7 against Western Conference opponents. Los Angeles ranks sixth in the Western Conference with 51.2 points per game in the paint led by Deandre Ayton<\/a> averaging 13.3.<\/p>\n

The Rockets are 10-8 in Western Conference play. Houston is second in the Western Conference scoring 54.3 points per game in the paint led by Alperen Sengun<\/a> averaging 14.3.<\/p>\n

The Lakers’ 11.7 made 3-pointers per game this season are only 0.8 fewer made shots on average than the 12.5 per game the Rockets give up. The Rockets are shooting 48.6% from the field, 0.2% higher than the 48.4% the Lakers’ opponents have shot this season.<\/p>\n

TOP PERFORMERS: Ayton is scoring 15.2 points per game and averaging 9.0 rebounds for the Lakers. LeBron James<\/a> is averaging 23.0 points and 2.0 rebounds over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

Amen Thompson<\/a> is averaging 17.5 points, 7.2 rebounds and 5.3 assists for the Rockets. Sengun is averaging 28.0 points and 6.0 rebounds while shooting 70.6% over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

LAST 10 GAMES: Lakers: 5-5, averaging 115.5 points, 43.6 rebounds, 22.7 assists, 6.1 steals and 5.1 blocks per game while shooting 47.3% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 121.6 points per game.<\/p>\n

Rockets: 5-5, averaging 120.8 points, 48.4 rebounds, 26.8 assists, 8.4 steals and 6.4 blocks per game while shooting 49.9% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 114.9 points.<\/p>\n

INJURIES: Lakers: Jaxson Hayes<\/a>: day to day (ankle), Gabe Vincent<\/a>: out (back), Rui Hachimura<\/a>: day to day (groin), Luka Doncic<\/a>: day to day (leg).<\/p>\n

Rockets: Fred VanVleet<\/a>: out for season (acl), Dorian Finney-Smith<\/a>: 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

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets (17-9, sixth in the Western Conference) vs. Los Angeles Lakers (19-9, fourth in the Western Conference)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[57897,750,7006,48,52,51,47,50,2497,49,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-107468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-57897","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-houston-rockets","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-headlines","13":"tag-la-news","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","16":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","17":"tag-los-angeles-news","18":"tag-nba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}