Mavericks at Rockets
James Harden is taking his role as point guard seriously, and the Houston Rockets are adjusting accordingly. Harden will try to get his teammates involved again when the Rockets host the Dallas Mavericks in the back end of a home-and-home set on Sunday.
Harden handed out a career-high 17 assists in a loss at the Los Angeles Lakers on Wednesday and added eight more to go along with 26 points and seven rebounds in a 106-98 win at the Mavericks on Friday. Harden, who relentlessly attacked the basket and was a volume scorer in the last few seasons, recorded a more modest 18 field-goal attempts and went 4-of-5 from the free-throw line while directing the offense at Dallas. The Mavericks were missing star forward Dirk Nowitzki (illness) in the loss but got another encouraging performance from new acquisition Harrison Barnes, who scored a career-high 31 points in the loss. Barnes struggled with his shot in the playoffs last spring with the Golden State Warriors and continued those troubles in the preseason but is 21-of-37 from the floor through the first two games of the regular season.
TV: 8 p.m. ET, FSN Southwest (Dallas), ROOT Southwest (Houston)
ABOUT THE MAVERICKS (0-2): Nowitzki's illness was bad enough that coach Rick Carlisle wasn't sure if the future Hall of Famer would make the trip with the team to Houston, leaving Barnes to potentially start at the power forward spot for a second straight game on Sunday. Barnes, who regularly filled that role in crunch time with Golden State, could use a little help from the rest of his teammates in the outside shooting department. Barnes went 2-of-4 from 3-point range in Friday's loss but the rest of the team was 6-of-25, including a 1-of-8 effort from Wesley Matthews.
ABOUT THE ROCKETS (1-1): Houston will play its only home game in the season's first eight contests on Sunday and is playing 14 of the first 20 on the road to kick off the 2016-17 campaign while getting used to a new system under head coach Mike D'Antoni. The Rockets had some trouble finding their form from the outside in the opening loss to the Lakers but were much better in that area on Friday as Ryan Anderson, Trevor Ariza and Eric Gordon combined to go 9-of-14 from 3-point range. "I think our legs are a little bit better, and we'll get more in shape as we play more games," D'Antoni told reporters in explaining the 3-point difference.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Rockets G K.J. McDaniels is 9-for-12 from the field through the first two games in a total of 34 minutes off the bench.
2. Dallas C Andrew Bogut hauled in a game-high 12 rebounds on Friday but Houston still won the battle of the boards 41-34.
3. The Texas rivals split the four-game series last season, with each team pulling out one road win.