What a game in Washington! Even a monster performance by James Harden is not enough for the Houston Rockets to win against the Washington Wizards. At the end John Wall takes over the command, while The Beard weakens in the Crunchtime.
It was an unusual sight, which presented itself to the Rockets fans at the beginning of the game. James Harden ran up with a bright red headband that hasn’t been seen at the acting MVP since Thunder times. But it obviously helped. Harden exploded for a season high of 54 points – and yet it wasn’t enough to win!
What happened? In the initial phase, another Rocket dominated the action on the floor: Eric Gordon. Already after 5 minutes the Shooting Guard, who started for the injured Chris Paul, had 11 points as well as 3 converted threes on the account. Especially thanks to Gordon, the guests earned an early 30:15 lead.
Afterwards Houston didn’t get too close together too much. In the second quarter Gordon, Harden and Co. scored only 1 out of 10 from the distance, while the Wizards scored 65 percent from the field and started their comeback.
Especially John Wall and Bradley Beal played a prominent role. Beal scored 32 points (12/18 FG), his backcourt colleague even scored 36 points (plus 11 assists) and delivered some spectacular plays. Towards the middle of the second quarter, the Wizards had equalized the game again, so it remained until the final phase.
Washington fought with all means against Harden, who little by little turned up really well. After 36 minutes, the bearded man finally had 44 points on his account (21 of them in the third quarter), but then he also got problems. In the final section Harden put 5 of his 7 throws on the ring.
So it was hot into the final minutes, an Alley Oop-Dunk by Clint Capela (17 points, 14 rebounds, 4 blocks) brought the equalizer just 10 seconds before the siren. Then Wall lost the spalding against the aggressive defense of P.J. Tucker, on the other side he made up for his mistake with a block against Gordon – Overtime!
It was Wall, not Harden, who left his mark on the game. Harden did 3 of his 11 turnovers in the OT (4 points), Wall brought his team with 6 points on the winning road.
A Fastbreak-Dunk of Beal brought the Wizards just two minutes before the end finally with 133:126 in front. Washington couldn’t take that anymore. In addition to Wall and Beal, Markieff Morris (22 and 10 boards) also performed well at the Wizards. Gordon had a strong 36 points (8/16 threes) at the end of the game, but apart from him and Capela there was too little support from the Rockets for Harden.