{"id":20791,"date":"2012-01-03T13:14:18","date_gmt":"2012-01-03T18:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20791"},"modified":"2012-01-03T13:14:18","modified_gmt":"2012-01-03T18:14:18","slug":"nba-picks-houston-rockets-vs-los-angeles-lakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-picks-houston-rockets-vs-los-angeles-lakers-20791\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Picks: Houston Rockets vs. Los Angeles Lakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston Rockets at Los Angeles Lakers
\nTuesday, 1\/3\/12, 10:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 FSW
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Los Angeles -7
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Los Angeles -7
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 191
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 191.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Los Angeles Lakers have won three straight against the Houston Rockets inside the Staples Center<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Houston has alternated wins and losses over its first four games this season, coming off an impressive 95-84 victory over the Atlanta Hawks as one-point home favorites on Dec. 31, 2011.\u00a0 \u201cI think so far in the season, we\u2019ve been showing two faces,\u201d commented Rockets forward Luis Scola.\u00a0 The Rockets will try to keep the Lakers under 90 points in tonight\u2019s contest, posting an 11-0 record in that situation a year ago, while capturing both circumstances during the early part of this season.\u00a0 Houston is 9-21 ATS in January over the past two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Rockets have allowed 108.5 points per game in their road losses this season, which is far different than allowing just 84.5 points per contest in two home victories.\u00a0 Houston will definitely lean on Kevin Martin offensively, who averaged 26.0 points per game against the Lakers during the 2010-11 season, while netting 27 points in the team\u2019s victory latest win.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles won two of three meetings against Houston during last year\u2019s series, picking up victories in both games inside the Staples Center.\u00a0 The Lakers have won three of their past four games, dropping a 99-90 decision to the Denver Nuggets last time out as 5.5-point road underdogs.\u00a0 The main storyline in this contest surrounds Kobe Bryan\u2019s right wrist, as he managed to shoot a combined 26.1 percent in two games against the Nuggets.\u00a0 The results were disappointing due to the star averaging 27.8 points on 48.1-percent shooting in the first four games of the season.\u00a0 Los Angeles is 11-27 ATS after going \u2018under\u2019 the total in three or more consecutive games.<\/p>\n

The Lakers will need Bryant at his best to cover this spread, as he averages 26.8 points per game against the Rockets in 49 career games.\u00a0 Los Angeles has won three straight in this series when hosting, while also capturing nine of the last 11 overall meetings between these Western Conference rivals.\u00a0 The team\u2019s big men have played relatively well this season, as first-year head coach Mike Brown is still playing around with the rotation.\u00a0 He has been impressed with the play of forward Troy Murphy, who is stuck behind Josh McRoberts and starters Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Lakers due to their 9-3 ATS mark on Tuesdays, while the Rockets are 0-4 ATS as a road underdog.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Houston Rockets at Los Angeles Lakers Tuesday, 1\/3\/12, 10:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 FSW Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Los Angeles -7 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Los Angeles -7 Opening Total:\u00a0 191 Current Total:\u00a0 191.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Houston has alternated wins and losses over its first four games this season, coming off an impressive 95-84 victory over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":15667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[831,1197,67,68,18,3693],"class_list":["post-20791","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-nba","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20791","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=20791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20792,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20791\/revisions\/20792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}