Los Angeles @ Houston preview

Last Meeting ( Feb 28, 2018 ) Houston 105, L.A. Clippers 92

The Los Angeles Clippers jumped into the No. 7 spot in the Western Conference with a win in the first of a three-game road trip at the Chicago Bulls on Tuesday, but the road is about to get significantly tougher. The Clippers will try to improve their position in the standings when they visit the NBA-best Houston Rockets on Thursday.

Los Angeles scraped by with a 112-106 win at the lowly Bulls but was not happy about the performance. "We haven't done this a lot," Clippers coach Doc Rivers told reporters. "We just felt like it was one of those games where guys struggled a little bit offensively and they let it affect them on the defensive end. I think they felt they were going to win anyway. We're not good enough to do that, but we did it tonight and got away with it." Los Angeles won't get away with a similar effort against the Rockets, who won 19 of their last 20 games and opened the two-game homestand by skipping past the San Antonio Spurs 109-93 on Monday, but still feel as if there's room to improve. "We don't have the luxury of just taking nights off," Houston star James Harden told reporters. "We're not where we want to be. We're not that good yet. So, we have to go out there and approach every single game, no matter who we're playing, like it's a playoff game."

TV: 8 p.m. ET, NBATV, FS Prime Ticket (Los Angeles), AT&T SportsNet Southwest (Houston)

ABOUT THE CLIPPERS (37-29): Los Angeles center DeAndre Jordan led the way with 29 points on 11-of-12 shooting and 18 rebounds in Tuesday's win. "He was great," Rivers told reporters of Jordan. "They were going to trap. We told them that before the game and we told them, 'If they trap, DJ you roll and let's keep finding him.' I think that's the one thing we did well. In the game plan, we kept finding DJ rolling down the middle of the paint and he finished for us." Jordan is averaging 19 rebounds in six games this month and grabbed 16 boards in a 105-92 home loss to Houston on Feb. 28.

ABOUT THE ROCKETS (53-14): Houston point guard Chris Paul scored 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting against the Spurs in just 23 minutes. "It's about us," Paul - who is questionable for Thursday due to a sore knee - told reporters. "Every game we go into we're trying to continue to build and we don't want to start getting bad habits and start letting teams do whatever. For us, it's about consistency and building." Paul's consistency comes at the free-throw line, where he has not missed since Feb. 25 and is shooting 92.1 percent on the season.

BUZZER BEATERS

1. Rockets SG Eric Gordon followed up a 26-point effort on 9-of-16 shooting on Sunday by going 0-of-7 from the floor and managing one point on Monday.

2. Clippers SG Avery Bradley is expected to miss the rest of the regular season after undergoing abdominal surgery on Tuesday.

3. Los Angeles took two of the first three meetings, including a 128-118 win at Houston on Dec. 22.

PREDICTION: Rockets 110, Clippers 101