Harden's career high 46 lead Rockets past Thunder - 5 talking points

The Houston Rockets, led by an inspired career high performance from James Harden, defeated the OKC Thunder 112-119. Here are the talking points from this game-

Fear the Beard

This must have been a classic revenge game for James Harden. The OKC Thunder had decided to let him go instead of offering him the money he was looking for. They decided he wasn’t worth the amount, and now with the Rockets he is showing what he is worth. As the OKC Thunder tried to bury the Rockets in the fourth quarter, James Harden came up big with 16 points to slam the door in their faces. For the game, Harden was near perfect. He finished with 46 points on 14 of 19 shooting for his career high performance. He was 7 of 8 from the three point line. He was 11 of 12 from the free throw line. And he almost had a triple double with his 8 rebounds and 6 assists in 44 minutes of action. The Thunder may have second guessed their decision to let go of Harden when they did, they must be kicking themselves now. Check it out-

“If he is not up for MVP consideration, I mean, I don’t know what else he needs to do. He made every single big play down the stretch and even the shots that I was able to have, they were created because of him.”- said Jeremy Lin of Harden’s excellent play.

Linsanity continues

Jeremy Lin’s departure from New York City was met with raised eyebrows from all. The consensus was that it would be better for him to be with the Knicks than anywhere else. His current situation is probably the next best thing to being a surefire contender. Being in Houston lets him carry on the phenomenon which Yao Ming instilled, continuing the Asian Sensation in Houston. Along with Harden, Linsanity had a combined 75 points. Lin had 29 points on 12 of 22 shooting.

Durant and Martin come up short

Neither Durant, Martin nor Westbrook shot particularly well. Durant had 16 points on 4 of 13 shooting, but he did add 11 assists and make 8 of 9 free throws while grabbing 12 boards for his second career triple double. Kevin Martin shot 5 of 13 for 15 points. Westbrook almost had a triple double himself. Westbrook shot 8 of 20 and had 28 points because of his 9 of 10 free throw shooting. He added 8 rebounds and 10 assists on the board. But Durant and Westbrook combined for 12 of the 22 turnovers of OKC.

Last minute trade

“It was definitely the weirdest game I’ve ever played in. It was just tough. It was hard to focus. It was hard to block out four friends leaving. That’s a huge win for us, and I thought we really showed something tonight, fighting through that, staying focused and playing a really good team.”- said Chandler Parsons of the Rockets. They had traded away Cole Aldrich, Tony Douglas and Patrick Patterson to the Kings for Thomas Robinson, Tyler Honeycutt, Francisco Garcia and a future second-round draft pick. Talk about last minute changes, expecting to see familiar faces in the locker room and finding out that they are now gone. Credit to the Rockets for not letting it faze them and still coming out to defeat a team like OKC>

Poor defense by OKC

OKC did themselves no favours with their defense though. “We’re not going to win when we give up three quarters of 30-plus points. As a team we’ve given up too many points. That’s not us. That’s not what we pride ourselves on. We have to regroup and figure it out defensively. It hasn’t been on our level on the road for a while now, but we have to change that.”- said the Thunder coach Scott Brooks. The Thunder allowed the Rockets to score 36, 21, 30 and 35 points in the four quarters. As a team, the Rockets shot 47.8% from the field and 45.5% from downtown. It’s hard to win when you can’t contain your opponent. Durant and Westbrook can only score so much.

With this win, the Rockets improved to 30-26 and the Thunder dropped to 39-15. Here are the game highlights-