It proved a chore to score, but winning streak hits 13
Paul takes over for second half; Harden outpaces Antetokounmpo
James Harden had gone from the training table to nailing 3-pointers, unsure if he could play at all, to his top-scoring game of the week. But that was not what had him beaming.
The Rockets had escaped the struggles of the night, to get their offense going with the game on the line. The finish line was in sight, but that was not what delighted him so.
He might have just been grinning in celebration of the violent slam Tarik Black had spiked, but that moment was typical of the Rockets’ surge to a 115-111 win over the Bucks as they once again found another way to score when they need one, taking the winning streak to 13 games.
The winning streak matched the fourth longest in franchise history. At 24-4, the Rockets matched their best record through 28 games. But the latest win was different, and in its own way, especially rewarding.
“This is one of our best wins of the season,” said Chris Paul, who scored 23 of his 25 points in the second half. “I think it just showed the fight that our team has and the maturity we have.
“We just kept talking about, ‘find a way, find a way.’ And we did it.”
Harden said he was “pretty close” to not playing at all because of his painfully bruised right knee after Friday’s fourthquarter crash into the basket stanchion. Instead, he played 39 minutes. Without his usual bursts of quickness, he scored 31 points with six rebounds and five assists. But the most impressive accomplishment might have been just playing at all.
“Wasn’t feeling well at all,” Harden said. “But the doc came in and just told me, ‘There is going to be pain. You can play through it. It can’t get worse, but it’s going to be pretty painful.’ “I was like, ‘Let’s go!’ ” Nothing would come easily. With the Rockets’ 3-point shooting off most of the night, they had to find another way to score enough to hold off the Bucks. With both teams in the second half of a backto-back and missing key players — Rockets center Clint Capela (bruised heel) joined Luc Mbah a Moute as out for the Rockets — the Rockets did not seem to have the usual energy to make up for the Bucks’ unusual length and young legs.
“You have to have some juice to beat them and we didn’t have that,” Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni said. “We had spurts of it.
“We found a way. It was one of those grind games, just to find a way somehow.”
The Rockets found it by alternately pounding the ball in the paint and knocking down midrange jumpers in the fourth quarter. Paul found his shooting touch after halftime, going from missing the four 3s he put up in the first half to knocking down the first three he launched in the second half. But with the game on the line, he relied on jumpers off the dribble, going 4-of-4 in the fourth quarter.
“You find it,” Paul said. “Some nights are like that. Early in the game was slow. It was my first backto-back this season. All of us, lean on each other. That’s what we talked about all game long.”
With the Bucks switching on screens, the Rockets got the ball inside, going 5-of-6 in the paint with the only miss a dunk Black tried that would have been even more remarkable than the one he finished.
The Rockets were so in need of answers, Black played the entire fourth quarter. With Nene showing signs of fatigue in a game he was scheduled to sit out before Capela’s injury, Rockets assis- tant coaches convinced D’Antoni to play Black for three or four minutes before returning to the veteran. Instead, Black never left the floor.
“Tarik is a true professional,” Harden said. “Came in when his name was called, not warmed or anything, and just set the tempo, made some really good defensive plays and offensively, did his job. And obviously, had a nice dunk.”
Paul called it “nasty.” It was also typical of the Rockets’ determination to keep looking until they were able to find a way.
“Games like this we have to grind out,” Harden said. jonathan.feigen@chron.com twitter.com/jonathan_feigen