Rockets 119, Magic 114, OT
HOUSTON -- Dwight Howard had 23 points and 14 rebounds and all five Houston starters scored in double figures as the Rockets defeated the Orlando Magic 119-114 in overtime on Wednesday night at the Toyota Center.
Rockets guard James Harden added 28 points and seven rebounds and forwards Trevor Ariza and Marcus Thornton scored 19 and 18, respectively, while combining to make 6 of 11 3-pointers.
Houston overcame 20 turnovers and Orlando's 58 points in the paint.
With the Rockets (2-3) scrambling against the shot clock, Howard grabbed a pass from Harden and finished off the glass for an ugly alley-oop that put Houston back in front 109-108 with 1:21 left.
Magic forward Evan Fournier scored a game-high 29 points, forward Aaron Gordon added 19 points and eight rebounds off the bench and forward Tobias Harris had 16 points for Orlando (1-4).
After Howard converted an alley-oop dunk with 9:46 to play, the Rockets led 97-91. The Magic erased that deficit with haste, and neither team led by more than one possession for the rest of the night.
Fournier's two free throws with 1.1 seconds left sent the game to overtime after the Rockets missed three foul shots in the final minute.
It seemed impossible for Orlando to maintain its torrid start after taking a 30-23 lead by making 14 of 16 shots from the field, including all four from behind the arc.
But when the Magic missed 6 of 7 shots down the stretch of the first, the Rockets rallied.
Houston closed the first quarter on a 9-1 run. By the midpoint of the second quarter, Orlando had just four field goals in the quarter and trailed 49-46 when Harden buried a 3-pointer with 6:21 left in the half.
Having scored 34 points in the first quarter, the Rockets matched that production in the second with a balanced attack. By intermission, four of five starters had scored in double figures.
In the third quarter, Houston opened an 80-70 lead on an Ariza 3-pointer with 5:35 left, but Fournier led an 11-1 Orlando blitz. With the deficit erased, the Magic carried the momentum into the fourth quarter.
NOTES: Magic C Nikola Vucevic departed in the third quarter with a sprained right knee and did not return. ... The Magic played the second game of their lone four-games-in-five-nights stretch this season, having defeated New Orleans for their first victory this season on Tuesday night. Orlando will host Toronto on Friday night before traveling to Philadelphia on Saturday. "The more you talk about it the more difficult it is," Magic coach Scott Skiles said. ... Skiles described the win over the Pelicans as the team's best example of spacing, with Orlando shooting a season-high 46.7 percent while assisting on 57.1 percent of its 42 field goals. ... Rockets F Terrence Jones had a couple stitches removed from his lacerated right eyelid and remains unavailable for the foreseeable future. ... Rockets coach Kevin McHale remains undecided on which end of the back-to-back (at Sacramento on Friday, at the Clippers on Saturday) C Dwight Howard will play, with that decision likely to be made sometime Thursday.