In the 2025-26 NBA Playoffs, the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets battle with a spot in the second round of the Western Conference Playoffs on the line. Sadly, this series could be determined by the players that won’t be available, as the Lakers are currently without Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves. Will they be back? Can Los Angeles make things close without them? Keep reading for a preview and prediction for this series. And make sure you check out our NBA Playoffs Betting Guide, which will serve as the hub for all of our postseason betting content!

Lakers vs. Rockets Series Odds

(Odds from DraftKings Sportsbook as of Wednesday, April 15 at 12:30 am ET)

Series Winner: Rockets -600, Lakers +425

Series Spread: Rockets -2.5 Games (+100), Lakers +2.5 Games (-120)

Series Total: Over 5.5 Games (-115), Under 5.5 Games (-105)

Lakers vs. Rockets Series Prediction

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This should be a very exciting series. For the first time since the 2018 NBA Finals, we’re going to see LeBron James and Kevin Durant square off in a postseason series. Unfortunately, the Lakers are so beaten up that all there is to think about here is the health of Doncic and Reaves. Both players are expected to be out another couple of weeks, but Doncic just went to Spain to try and expedite his recovery process. ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that Doncic will be back in the United States on Friday. Well, how long after that will it take for him to return to action? Doncic got hurt on April 2, his timeline to return was considered 4-6 weeks, and Game 1 of this series tips on April 18. That’s only 15 full days of rest and recovery, which doesn’t seem like enough for a serious hamstring strain. But how about a return in Game 3 or 4? Perhaps three-ish weeks is enough with the round-the-clock treatment he received in Europe, which included all kinds of injections.

Reaves’ return is a little more uncertain. His oblique strain was a Level 2 strain, much like Doncic’s hamstring was, but we haven’t heard nearly as much about his treatment plans. Is his timetable even remotely similar to Doncic’s? I guess we’ll find out.

Considering all of the question marks heading into this one, it does feel like a series the Rockets should find a way to win. For as shaky as Houston has been this season, the team finished with 52 wins. That’s pretty impressive with Fred VanVleet having missed the whole season, along with Steven Adams having missed most of it. The Rockets were also eighth in adjusted offensive rating (117.4) and fifth in adjusted defensive rating (112.4), making them one of six teams that finished top 10 in both categories.

Houston has a good advanced stats profile, a proven killer in Durant, a great low-post offensive hub in Alperen Sengun, and then a bunch of big athletes that play extremely hard. That makes this a tough team to play on a nightly basis. Also, while people were down on Houston’s offense this season, the Rockets had a raw offensive rating of 126.8 over the final 10 games of the regular season. That was the second-best mark in the league in that stretch, and it really felt like Ime Udoka was pressing the right buttons and putting guys in position to succeed — even if I still believe he’s being stubborn in not starting Reed Sheppard.

Speaking of Sheppard, not only will this be a good Houston team going up against a depleted Los Angeles team, but the Lakers being down two stars means that the Rockets should really dominate bench minutes here. LA is just really lacking in depth at the moment, so Sheppard should be able to crush those weaker bench units.

Despite all of that, with the possibility of a Doncic return even remotely on the table, it’s hard not to like the Lakers on the series spread — and I also like the idea of a moneyline sprinkle. It’s just hard to flush what happened when these two teams met in mid-March, when the Lakers won two straight road games in Houston. Those were games in which Los Angeles was playing in brutal rest spots, but the Lakers won both games by eight. In those games, Doncic was unguardable for the Lakers, getting whatever shots he wanted and doing high-level work as a playmaker. With that in mind, if Doncic does appear in this series, things could get interesting here.

It’s also massive that the Lakers were able to grab home-court advantage in this series. I wouldn’t like Los Angeles’ chances of splitting the first two games in Houston here, but how can you count out LeBron stealing a win on his own home floor? After all, in the four games he played without Doncic and Reaves to end the year, he averaged 25.0 points, 11.0 assists, and 6.8 rebounds per game and shot 55.7% from the floor. JJ Redick was putting him in the mid-post and low-post with regularity, and that put LeBron in position to either score around the basket or make quick reads to find some shooters. Well, if his teammates are knocking down open triples against the Rockets, that should be a little successful in the postseason.

Redick’s X’s-and-O’s acumen is a little underrated. People see some of the clips of him acting out and convince themselves he can’t coach, but he’s a fantastic thinker of the game. And he was on point with everything he was having his team do against this Rockets team late in the year, with one thing that really stood out being the consistent blitzing and double-teaming of Durant. That forced a lot of bad decisions out of Houston’s superstar, and there was a trickle-down effect with the rest of the lineup.

Overall, I expect Redick to have Los Angeles ready to go early in the series, and one early win could change everything. So, let’s ride with the Lakers to win at least two games and hope Doncic is able to come back.

Series Pick: Lakers +2.5 Games (-110 – 1.5 units) & Lakers To Win Series (+530 – 0.25 units)

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