Houston Rockets (37-13) beat their Texas rivals San Antonio Spurs (34-20) in their second match of the season. At the 102:91 victory (BOXSCORE) the guests start the game dominantly, but in the end they have to defend themselves against the Spurs’ comeback attempts. James Harden achieves this with flying colours thanks to an outstanding clutch performance.
Just two days after his 60-point triple double against Orlando Magic, James Harden presented himself at the beginning of the Texas-Derbys on fire! The bearded man pocketed 5 of his 6 throwing attempts in the first quarter and after 12 minutes he scored the same number of points as well as 4 assists.
In addition to Harden, Ryan Anderson and Gerald Green also found the game to be very good, especially from a distance. The Spurs-Offense, on the other hand, could not claim this. In the meantime, the hosts were almost four minutes without points, which is why Houston dropped early on to 13 points.
In the second quarter, San Antonio returned briefly, but the comeback attempt was abruptly interrupted by another three of Green and Harden. Houston responded with a 10-2 run and had an 18-point lead on the credit side towards the end of the second round.
San Antonio had to thank Danny Green in particular for the fact that the gap did not get any bigger after the halftime break. The three-and-D-specialist of the Spurs advanced 22 points to the top scorer of his team, LaMarcus Aldridge contributed 16 points and 8 rebounds. Downtown’s rockets also cooled down dramatically, with San Antonio scoring 6 points at the beginning of the final leg.
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The correct answer to the course of the Spurs was finally found by Chris Paul. After the Point Guard paused with groin problems in the last game, CP3 was in good shape this evening. With 6 points in a row he got the rockets back on track, then Harden took over.
Even against one of the NBA’s best defenses, The Beard played his programme in an icy atmosphere. The 28-year-old also committed a foul in a one-and-a-half-minute pull up to the end of the match, bringing Houston back to 99:85 with a four-point game. That was too much for San Antonio, who with a few ball losses in the fourth quarter stood again and again in the way of himself.
Harden ended the game with 28 points (10/20 FG) and 11 assists, Paul scored 10 points, while Clint Capela played a strong double-double (14 points, 13 rebounds, 5 blocks). In addition, Gerald Green (15) and P. J. Tucker (10), so that the absence of Eric Gordon (back problems) didn’t matter.
The Rockets celebrated their seventh victory from the past eight games and set the record for the best start after 50 games in one season with a record 37-13.
Spurs vs. Rockets: Click here for the BOXSCORE!
James Harden. Of course, The Beard was a little bit away from his monster performance against the Magic that night. Nevertheless, Harden showed a consistently strong performance. Especially in his role as a ball distributor he created numerous good opportunities for his team mates. With two ice-cold pull ups in the last two minutes, Harden also made the decision.
Pau Gasol. Although the Big Man was often sought after in the post office at the beginning of the game, Gasol had only one attempt to throw the ball on his account. The Spaniard scored his 6 points all from the free-throw line. Although he collected 7 rebounds, Gasol was not a factor. He also suffered 4 ball losses.
The defence’s motto of the rockets was already clear in the beginning minutes: Aldridge is not supposed to get off to a good start this evening. Due to the continuous switches at Pick & Rolls, the guests were often exposed to a mismatch in the zone – which the Spurs were all too happy to accept – but with aggressive double teams they made life difficult for the big men of the hosts. So LMA and Co. were forced to fit the ball out of the post again and didn’t really find their rhythm.