Harden applies last blow
After display of passing skills, scoring ability comes to fore to finish off win over Nuggets
DENVER — James Harden spent much of the night looking over the Nuggets’ defense, sitting back like a distance runner plotting a finishing kick, waiting for the time to take off.
The Nuggets had made their move, reducing a 10-point lead to four. The time had come.
Harden had begun to roll in the third quarter, largely with a sensational stretch of passing. He made just one field goal in the first half, but increasingly seemed in command.
When the game was tight, he took it over, driving the Rockets through a 13-2 fourth-quarter run in which he scored or set up every point, and past the Nuggets 109-99 on Tuesday night.
After scoring three first-half points, Harden had 19 in the second half, making 6 of 11 shots, with seven assists. He had plenty of help, with the Rockets’ offense clicking as it had not all season. Center Clint Capela was quick and explosive on his rolls to the basket, scoring a season-high 24. Chris Paul got off to a second consecutive fast start and had 21.
With James Ennis III and P.J. Tucker combining for 28 points, every Rockets starter scored in double figures. The Rockets’ 54.9 percent shooting was their best of the season.
Yet, it took Harden’s takeover to put the Rockets over the top.
“James was not scoring in the first half,” coach Mike D’Antoni said. “It’s just a matter of time. He just figures it out. He’s a professional scorer. It’s what he does.”
The Nuggets spent much of the game sending two defenders to Harden on high screens, rather than the switching style that has spread around the league. But he spent years going against that strategy and happily moved the ball to Capela and open shooters.
“I just take what the defense gives me,” Harden said. “They were up early on pick-and-roll. I trusted the guys to make the right passes. As the game goes on and you execute, the defense starts to relax a little more. It just takes patience.”
Harden had taken just three shots in the first half and put up just one more in the first six minutes of the second half. But he was getting the ball to a rapidly-cutting Capela, who quickly triggered ball movement as the Nuggets’ defenders rotated. When enough of the 3s that created fell, the Nuggets were slower to help and Capela began finishing Harden’s passes with slams.
“I have to make the right decision,” Capela said. “In the first half, they were more in the paint. I made the right decision and kicked it out. In second half, they were more focused on our shooters.”
After Harden set up Capela for a dunk and passed to Tucker, the Nuggets came out of a timeout ready to switch big men on to Harden.
That’s when he knew he had them.
“Yeah, yeah. It requires patience,” Harden said. “If you don’t have that patience, especially as a playmaker, you kind of tend to rush things and turn the ball over and that’s when they get easy baskets. In the first half, we turned the ball over. In the second half, we limited our turnovers and got quality shots.”
After committing seven turnovers in the first quarter, they had eight the rest of the night. The defensive turnaround was even more pronounced. The Nuggets made 53.8 percent of their shots in the first half. In the third quarter, a period in which the Rockets rank fourth in the NBA in field goal percentage defense, the Nuggets made just 40 percent and the Rockets built a 10-point lead.
“We’ve got to try make them try to take tough shots,” Rockets guard Eric Gordon said. “In the second half, we really turned it up defensively.
“We took advantage of who we could pick on on offense, but our defense gave us the opportunities to do that. We’re figuring it out. Our offense is coming a lot easier, but our defense is going to create all those opportunities.”
That was enough to keep the Rockets in front. They pulled away when Harden scored 11 points in a 2½ minute burst, then set up Capela for another dunk, giving the Rockets their largest lead, 106-91, on the way to a second consecutive victory against a winning team for the first time this season.
“They’re a really good team, a good young team,” Gordon said. “We’ll see them in the future. If we continue to play our game, it’s going to be hard to beat us.”