Rockets at Pelicans
The Houston Rockets are a well-rounded team that doesn't need to be carried by one player in order to win games, but occasionally James Harden takes over and shows why he's the reigning MVP. Harden will try to follow up a 61-point effort and lead the Rockets to a 14th win in 16 games when they visit the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday.
Harden, who leads the NBA in scoring at an average of 36.1 points, went for 57 points in a 126-125 overtime loss at Memphis on Wednesday and stepped up his game a bit more on Friday, pouring in 61 on 19-of-34 shooting while burying 9-of-13 from beyond the arc in a 111-105 triumph over the San Antonio Spurs. "I knew how important this game was," Harden told reporters. "This was to take a 3-1 lead in the regular season, and we gave up one last game, so this was an opportunity for us to take care of home and I wanted to come out with some aggressiveness." The Pelicans are playing out the string on their way to the draft lottery with losses in seven of the last eight games and have been off since dropping a 119-96 decision at Orlando on Wednesday. "It's just a terrible matchup for us, for some reason," New Orleans coach Alvin Gentry told reporters of the Magic. "Our two worst losses this year have been against them, really. They've both been 30-point games - I don't really care what the stat sheet says, it was a 30-point game (Wednesday). I'm not really sure why we can't match up with this team, or why we can't seem to score against this team."
TV: 7 p.m. ET, AT&T SportsNet Southwest (Houston), FS New Orleans
ABOUT THE ROCKETS (46-27): Houston is trying to hold off the Portland Trail Blazers in the race for the No. 3 spot in the West, and Harden's performance kept the team one game up entering play on Saturday. "I don't know how you get any better," Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni told reporters of Harden. "Whoever was in the gym tonight probably (saw) something they have never seen before. There's no way. That was one of the best performances - the magnitude of the game, we needed it - just everything. I don't know how many points he got in the last four minutes, but we were down. The guy was playing." Harden was the only Rockets player to shoot better than 50 percent from the floor in the win.
ABOUT THE PELICANS (31-43): Wednesday's loss saw an end to Elfrid Payton's streak of five straight triple-doubles as he finished with seven points, three rebounds and two assists. Payton, who averaged 16.6 points, 11.8 rebounds and 12.8 assists during the streak, was not the only Pelicans player to struggle in the loss as power forward Julius Randle was held to six points on 1-of-9 shooting in 22 minutes while committing six turnovers. The lackluster effort snapped a streak of five straight games scoring at least 23 points and 13 in a row scoring at least 18 for Randle.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Rockets C Clint Capela went 3-of-8 from the floor on Friday, snapping a streak of 17 straight games shooting 50 percent or better.
2. Pelicans PF Anthony Davis (personal) missed Wednesday's game and is questionable for Sunday.
3. The road team took the last three in the series, with New Orleans grabbing a 121-116 win at Houston in the most recent meeting on Jan. 29.