{"id":12989,"date":"2011-02-01T09:48:26","date_gmt":"2011-02-01T14:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12989"},"modified":"2011-02-01T09:48:26","modified_gmt":"2011-02-01T14:48:26","slug":"houston-rockets-at-los-angeles-lakers-pro-basketball-picks-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/houston-rockets-at-los-angeles-lakers-pro-basketball-picks-predictions-12989\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Rockets at Los Angeles Lakers Pro Basketball Picks & Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston Rockets at Los Angeles Lakers
\nTuesday, 2\/1\/11, 10:30 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Los Angeles -8.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Los Angeles -8.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 207
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 209<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Los Angeles Lakers are coming off a disappointing loss to the Boston Celtics and now face the Houston Rockets at Staples Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Houston has dropped four of its last six away from home and face the two-time defending champions at Staples Center on Tuesday night.\u00a0 The Rockets have been struggling over the last couple weeks and point guard Aaron Brooks has placed some of the blame squarely on himself.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve been losing,\u201d he stated.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m doing my job to help right now.\u00a0 I\u2019m still trying to get in the rhythm of things and help the team out.\u201d\u00a0 The team is coming off a 108-95 defeat to San Antonio last time out, as it trailed by five points heading into the fourth quarter, which was a bad place to be considering the Spurs are 32-1 this season when leading after three quarters.\u00a0 Houston is 12-14 ATS as an underdog this season, but carries in an impressive 8-2 ATS mark against Pacific division opponents.\u00a0 Make sure to check out the NBA lines page for movement on this particular game.<\/p>\n

The Rockets are 5-11 overall on the road against Western Conference opponents during the 2010-11 campaign and are 25-70 against the Lakers in Southern California.\u00a0 Houston has given Los Angeles problems of late, including a 109-99 home win on December 1, closing the game on a 25-8 run.\u00a0 Offensively, the squad would be best served to lean heavily on guard Kevin Martin, who has scored a combined 48 points in the season\u2019s first two match-ups.\u00a0 He is coming off a disappointing effort in scoring just 10 points against the Spurs on 4 of 13 shooting from the field.\u00a0 \u201cI just lost the rhythm,\u201d Martin commented.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know how I lost it, but I just did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Los Angeles isn\u2019t scaring many opponents this season and is now 1-5 against top contenders Boston, Miami, Chicago, San Antonio and Dallas this season.\u00a0 The Lakers have also found ways to lose to some of the worst teams in the league, including a home loss to Sacramento on Friday.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s probably more of a disappointment to me that we haven\u2019t taken care of the teams that we should take care of,\u201d said coach Phil Jackson.\u00a0 \u201cThe inconsistency is what bothers me most.\u201d\u00a0 The team really needs to grab a decisive victory in this particular contest due to facing San Antonio and then embarking on a seven-game road trip.\u00a0 Los Angeles is 10-15 ATS at home and 21-26 ATS as a favorite this season.<\/p>\n

The Lakers have an 18-7 overall record at the Staples Center this season, including a 10-3 mark against Western foes.\u00a0 Los Angeles is 8-2 against Houston in the last 10 overall meetings and are 14-8 all-time against them in tonight\u2019s venue.\u00a0 In 48 career games versus Houston, star guard Kobe Bryant is averaging 26.7 points per game, which is his fifth-highest among all opponents faced.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Lakers due to the home team being 7-3 ATS in the last 10 meetings, while the Rockets are 3-7-1 ATS versus the Western Conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Houston Rockets at Los Angeles Lakers Tuesday, 2\/1\/11, 10:30 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Los Angeles -8.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Los Angeles -8.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 207 Current Total:\u00a0 209 Houston has dropped four of its last six away from home and face the two-time defending champions at Staples Center on Tuesday night.\u00a0 The Rockets have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":3936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[831,1197,67,68,3624,3693],"class_list":["post-12989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-houston-rockets","tag-kevin-martin","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-staples-center","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12989"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12991,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12989\/revisions\/12991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}