James Harden on Thursday delivered his seventh career 50-point, 10-assist performance as the Houston Rockets edged the Miami Heat 121-118.
With Harden in a three-point shooting slump over the past few games, the Rockets have been depending on their reserves to help get the job done, but Harden reasserted himself in front of a home crowd of 18,100, finishing with 58 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds on a night when the Rockets had to once again tinker with their roster because of injuries.
“I wanted to be aggressive and continue to attack the rim,” Harden said.
Photo: Troy Taormina, USA Today
He got some help down the stretch from Austin Rivers (17 points) and Chris Paul, whose jumper with 46 seconds left followed a failed Harden three-pointer and extended the lead to three.
Coming into the game, Harden was just 3-31 from beyond the arc in his previous three games.
Harden has three 50-point, 10-assist games this season.
“We get the stat sheet at the end of the game and I saw he had 58,” Rivers said. “All of us were like: ‘He had that many points?’ We had no idea he had that many points. That’s a lot of points.”
Miami had seven players score in the double figures with Goran Dragic and Kelly Olynyk scoring 21 points apiece.
The Heat shot 51.9 percent overall, but went cold at the wrong time, posting only 20 points on 6-17 shooting in the final period.
“We were lackadaisical on defense, especially in that second quarter,” Harden said. “They gained confidence and knocked down shots. They were just too comfortable, so we had to pick the pressure up in the second half, create some turnovers and energy with our defense.”
Elsewhere, Aaron Gordon tallied 22 points and 15 rebounds as the Orlando Magic snapped an 11-game losing streak to beat the Golden State Warriors 103-96.
The Warriors blew an 11-point lead en route to losing their second game in as many nights.
Terrence Ross scored 16 points and D.J. Augustin got 14, while Nikola Vucevic had 12 points and 13 rebounds to help Orlando beat the Warriors for the first time since December 2012.
Stephen Curry scored 33 points, and Klay Thompson and DeMarcus Cousins each had 21 for the Warriors, who rested Kevin Durant and ended up paying for it.
Curry sank only one basket in the fourth quarter.
“Considering the way we finished the third quarter, we were pretty much in control of the game,” Curry said. “But we missed a lot of shots and didn’t get any stops, so it’s a frustrating way to end. This is a tough one.”
The Magic shot just 5-23 from the field in the third quarter and trailed 81-70 going into the fourth.
Elsewhere on Thursday, it was:
‧ Cavaliers 125, Knicks 118
‧ Pacers 122, T’wolves 115
‧ 76ers 108, Thunder 104
‧ Jazz 111, Nuggets 104
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier