Portland Trail Blazers vs Houston Rockets Prediction & Betting Tips - NBA

Prediction published on 08/03/2024, 07:56  by Kennedy Kechula in NBA Predictions

The Portland Trail Blazers will be at home to welcome fellow NBA Western Conference strugglers Houston Rockets. The two teams sit outside the playoff places with Houston in 12th and Portland in 14th. The Trail Blazers have won the last four matchups with the Rockets and will be confident of a win. Chauncey Billups’ men won the first meeting of the season earlier in the year in OT. Another victory here will see them take a 2-0 lead in this four-game regular season series. The Blazers are coming off a 128-120 loss at home to the Thunder. This was their second successive defeat and both matches were against the top two teams in the West. They have compiled a 17-44 record which is the fifth worst return in the entire league. Portland have been plagued by injuries all season long. Scoot Henderson, Jabari Walker, Jerami Grant, and Deandre Ayton are questionable for this game. Malcolm Brogdon and Shaedon Sharpe are however ruled out completely. The Blazers have averaged 113.7 points over their last three games.

The Houston Rockets are also coming off a defeat. Ime Udoka’s men saw a two-game winning run end last time out with a 122-116 home loss to the Clippers. This was their 35th defeat of the season and it saw them drop to eight games below .500. Houston are faring much better than Portland and have won 27 games so far. However, only six of those have come on the road where they have lost 24 times. The Rockets are six games adrift of the play-in places with 20 matches left to play. Jeff Green has been listed as ‘Questionable’ for this trip. Tari Eason and Steven Adams, the other players on the injury report, are out for the season The Rockets have averaged 116 points over their last three matches which is a four-point improvement from their season average.