Houston snapped a three-game slide with the 116-114 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday despite committing 23 turnovers and yielding 16 3-pointers. Harden, however, had the final say. “We need to come out and play better defense, but this is a trend”. They were crisp offensively, knocking down shots.
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“They kept attacking”, NY forward said. “This one, was a little bit different because we clawed our way back”.
“It was different with us”, Anthony said.
3-POINTER – Houston has been the most aggressive team in the National Basketball Association when it comes to placing a premium on the 3-point shot.
They’ve tried all kind of things, they’ve switched lineups, they’ve fired Kevin McHale and they even went as far as to bring in a Navy SEAL to talk to these guys to motivate them play hard on both ends of the floor.
Nikola Mirotic scored a valiant 25 points on eight of 14 shooting in his side’s loss.
When they hit jump shots, they win. However, with a series of back and forths, too ugly to describe without using graphic language, the Rockets managed to build a four-point lead with 6.1 seconds left. Houston kept pressing in a wild fourth quarter, as James Harden scored 16 of his 29 and Marcus Thornton added added 11 of his 18.
Regardless, we should certainly take a second to salute the Sixers that made this one a game: Primarily Lord Robert Covington, who after a very slow start to the season – he missed his first 18 three-point attempts, almost making history for beyond-the-arc futility – has now picked up where he left off as Philly’s best two-way player.
Thomas, an undrafted second-year pro, got his first start of the season in place of Anthony and, on this particular play, his arm inadvertently re-directed the pass to the ideal place – around the defender, clearing the way for Thomas to gather the ball and finish a breakaway double-pump jam.
Howard added 14 points and Capela had 11 rebounds for the Rockets.
“Yeah, they’re a tough team to guard”, Phoenix’s Markieff Morris said. Not just me, but my other teammates. It’s scary to think how far this streak can go, but you can expect it continue until they face the Lakers on December 1st.
However, with the game in the balance, it was last season’s MVP runner-up James Harden that took over the game and sealed the 76ers’ fate.
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The team suffered a string of close game losses recently with games against the Boston Celtics, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Miami Heat.
