{"id":88391,"date":"2017-02-07T22:46:10","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T03:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=88391"},"modified":"2017-02-07T22:46:10","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T03:46:10","slug":"harden-has-25-to-lead-rockets-over-magic-128-104","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/02\/07\/harden-has-25-to-lead-rockets-over-magic-128-104\/","title":{"rendered":"Harden has 25 to lead Rockets over Magic 128 104"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"James<\/a>
James Harden had 25 points and 13 assists as the Houston Rockets built a big lead early and held off a late rally to get a 128-104 win over the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night. (Photo: Houston Rockets\/ Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

HOUSTON \u2013James Harden had 25 points and 13 assists as the Houston Rockets built a big lead early and held off a late rally to get a 128-104 win over the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

The Rockets had led by as many as 23 before the Magic begin chipping away at the lead. Serge Ibaka made a turnaround jump shot midway through the fourth quarter to cut Houston’s lead to nine points. Harden grabbed a bad pass from Evan Fournier not long after that and dished to Eric Gordon, who finished with a 3-pointer. Trevor Ariza added a 3-pointer for Houston to extend the lead to 112-97 with about four minutes remaining to put the game away.<\/p>\n

Patrick Beverley made seven points after that to help extend the lead to 120-99 with less than two minutes left and send Houston’s starters to the bench.<\/p>\n

It is Houston’s second straight win and the 10th loss in 13 games for the Magic.<\/p>\n

Harden’s scoring slowed down a bit on Tuesday after he scored 41 and 42 points in his last two games. But his 13 assists ended a streak of four straight games where he had fewer than 10, which was a season-long drought.<\/p>\n

Ibaka had 28 points for the Magic and Evan Fournier added 21.<\/p>\n

Houston led by 12 early in the third quarter when Beverley and Ariza made consecutive 3-pointers to spark an 11-4 run that extended the lead to 81-62 with about seven minutes left in the quarter.<\/p>\n

The Magic missed five shots in that span to help Houston pad its advantage.<\/p>\n

The Rockets had pushed the lead to 20 points not long after that when the Magic finally got something going, and used a 16-5 spurt to get within 93-84 late in the third quarter. Gordon made one of two free throws after that to leave the Rockets up 94-84 entering the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

Fournier made six points to help Orlando cut the lead in that span, including four straight free throws late in that time.<\/p>\n

Orlando led by nine points midway through the first quarter before Houston used a 15-6 run to take a 26-24 lead. Ibaka made two quick baskets after that before Houston scored the last nine points of the period to take a 35-28 lead into the second.<\/p>\n

The Rockets scored the first six points of the second quarter, with four from Nene, to extend the lead to 41-28 and they led 70-54 at halftime.<\/p>\n

TIP-INS<\/p>\n

Magic: Nikola Vucevic had 14 points and a season-high 19 rebounds. … The Magic made just six of 25 3-pointers. … D.J. Augustin added 11 points.<\/p>\n

Rockets: Clint Capela had 17 points to extend his streak of games with at least 10 points to a career-high eight straight games. … Nene had 13 points for his fourth double-digit game in the last five. … Beverley had seven assists, to give him at least five in six of the last seven games.<\/p>\n

THE DREAM<\/p>\n

Hakeem Olajuwon was honoured on Tuesday night as part of the team’s 50th anniversary celebration. The Hall of Famer, who helped the Rockets to back-to-back titles in 1994-95, is Muslim and was born in Nigeria, but has since become a naturalized U.S. citizen. He addressed new President Donald Trump’s travel ban before the game.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI was kind of surprised,\u201d he said. \u201cI was thinking maybe a lot of people say things just to get elected and wouldn’t actually do it … I think in the first quarter you would make a mistake and have to adjust. I think this was a mistake that the president made.\u201d<\/p>\n

He hopes Trump will change course.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can adjust in the second half to make it work by pull(ing) everybody together,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is an opportunity to pull everybody together instead of separating.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON \u2013James Harden had 25 points and 13 assists as the Houston Rockets built a big lead early and held …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":88392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[2433,13605,904,14832],"class_list":["post-88391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-basketball","tag-houston-rockets","tag-nba","tag-orlando-magic","mauthors-kristie-rieken","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}