{"id":368582,"date":"2025-12-25T02:05:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T02:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368582\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T02:05:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T02:05:04","slug":"luka-doncic-sends-rockets-message-before-christmas-day-matchup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/368582\/","title":{"rendered":"Luka Doncic sends Rockets message before Christmas Day matchup"},"content":{"rendered":"

As is the case every year, the NBA has scheduled a slate of marquee matchups for Christmas Day. One of them will pit the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> versus the Houston Rockets<\/a>, which means that LeBron James will go up against Kevin Durant once again.<\/p>\n

Lately, the Lakers have seen Austin Reaves, Deandre Ayton, Rui Hachimura and Luka Doncic miss time due to injuries. Reaves and Ayton returned on Tuesday against the Phoenix Suns<\/a>, but the team is still waiting on Hachimura and Doncic to recover enough to be cleared to play.<\/p>\n

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In the meantime, Doncic let the Rockets know that the Purple and Gold plan to put some coal in their stockings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look forward to welcoming you to L.A. on Christmas, where we celebrate the holiday by handing out big gifts and tough L\u2019s,\u201d Doncic said. \u201cMerry swishmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lakers have a 19-9 record and are in fourth place in the Western Conference, but they have lost five of their last nine games. Houston is 17-10 and in sixth place, and it has dropped five of its last seven contests.<\/p>\n

According to ESPN NBA insider Shams Charania, Doncic is expected to play<\/a> versus Houston, as long as his Wednesday workout goes well.<\/p>\n

“Luka Doncic is expected to play on Christmas Day against the Houston Rockets,” Charania said. “I’m told he’s undergoing a workout today — as long as that goes smooth for him, he will return to the lineup and debut his new signature shoe on Thursday.”<\/p>\n

So far this season, Doncic is leading the NBA in scoring average and is putting up 34.1 points, 8.6 rebounds, 8.8 assists and 1.6 steals a game.<\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Luka Doncic sends Rockets message before Christmas Day matchup<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As is the case every year, the NBA has scheduled a slate of marquee matchups for Christmas Day.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[11654,57899,180904,6405,5050,5556,3013,1055,3014,355,6415,33866,99],"class_list":["post-368582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-austin-reaves","tag-christmas-day","tag-christmas-message","tag-deandre-ayton","tag-houston-rockets","tag-kevin-durant","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-luka-doncic","tag-nba","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-rui-hachimura","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}