The red-hot Los Angeles Clippers look to continue rolling on Tuesday night against the Utah Jazz, who expect to have their best player back in the mix.
The pregame narrative: Lauri Markkanen has missed most of January but should be back on the court tonight. He’ll have to deal with an L.A. squad that is 12-3 in its past 15 games.
Check out my same-game parlay Clippers vs. Jazz picks, featuring prop bets on James Harden and Ace Bailey.
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Clippers vs. Jazz picks
SGP: Jazz +14.5 | Bailey under 12.5 points | Harden 8+ assists (+335)
Jazz +14.5 points (-275): Look, it’s obviously tough to bet against the Clippers tonight. But they can still cruise to a victory while the Jazz hang in for some semi-competitive hoops.
The key tonight is Markkanen (illness), who’s listed as questionable after missing eight of Utah’s past nine games.
In Markkanen’s recent absences, the Jazz went 1-7 with a -15.9 average point differential. Woof.
But in their past 15 games with their talented Finn, the Jazz are 8-7 and have covered this number 12 times. Don’t forget that Markkanen helped Utah to a 129-108 win on opening night vs. the Clippers, too.
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Kawhi Leonard (knee) is back on the injury report and is questionable to play. His availability is really anyone’s guess.
Despite the Clips’ impressive resurgence, they’re still 8-15 SU (11-12 ATS) on the road. This is a big, big number to cover.
NBA SGP pick
Bailey under 12.5 points (-107): Bailey has been getting a ton of shots up in Markkanen’s absence, but I expect that to be curtailed tonight.
- During a seven-game stretch without Markkanen, the rookie averaged 15.4 points on 13.4 shot attempts. But he was pretty inconsistent, and this under went 3-4 in that span.
- Before then, Bailey was averaging 9.9 PPG on 9.0 shot attempts.
Markkanen has put up 27.9 PPG this season on just south of 20.0 shots per game. He demands the ball when he’s out there, and that’s completely warranted.
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Even if Markkanen isn’t at full strength tonight, I expect he’ll take a big bite out of Bailey’s opportunities.
The No. 5 pick in this past year’s draft has underwhelming shooting splits (45.0/34.0/72.2). He needs volume to produce.
Clippers prop prediction
Harden 8+ assists (-305): L.A.’s bearded floor general has averaged 8.1 assists so far and is 22-20 vs. this prop. With just those numbers in mind, this seems like an absurd amount of juice to deal with.
But the matchup is ideal, and Harden has been serving up tons of assists lately.
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- The Jazz allow the most assists per game (30.8). Back on opening night, when Harden last played in Utah, he tallied 11 assists in under 30 minutes.
- Over his past 11 games, Harden is 8-3 vs. this prop while averaging 8.6 assists.
In Utah’s past 13 games, 10 opponents have had at least one player hit this assist milestone.
Clippers vs. Jazz picks made at 12:15 p.m. on Jan. 27, 2026.
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Jordan enjoys writing data-driven game previews and analysis articles — especially for MLB markets or NFL/NBA props. And as a proud Ohio University grad, he’ll always have a soft spot for college sports (especially if the Bobcats are involved). Previous stops include mlb.com, Sportsnet and The Athletic.