James Harden, Rockets Beat Clippers in 1st Meeting Since Locker Room Altercation
The last time the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Clippers played, a postgame near-brawl in the locker rooms led to suspensions.
This time around, the only battle was the Rockets with themselves about how many points they could score.
James Harden scored 25 points and Clint Capela had a double-double as the Rockets earned a 105-92 win over the Clippers on Wednesday.
Houston has reeled off 14 straight wins and is 18-1 since the two teams' last matchup in Los Angeles, a testy 113-102 Clippers win that featured five technical fouls and a postgame altercation that led to a late-night Basketball Twitter fiasco.
Reports of what actually transpired have varied—all that's known is that Chris Paul, James Harden, Trevor Ariza and Gerald Green attempted to enter the Clippers locker room through a back tunnel—but it was understandably the focus of pregame comments.
"You know, we've kind of barricaded all of the secret passageways, and so, I don't think ... listen, I haven't heard one guy talk about it, to be honest," Clippers coach Doc Rivers told reporters. "They're a team we want to beat. They're, right now, they and Golden State in the West are the best two teams, probably the best two teams in basketball. They just so happen to be in the West. I honestly don't think we are on their radar that much, except for, they want to beat us. We've beat them twice. Other than that, not much."
And beat the Clippers the Rockets did, opening the game with a 34-12 first quarter and trailing for just 23 seconds the entire contest. While the rest of the game was more competitive—the Clippers drew within eight points in the third quarter—there really was never any question about the result.
Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle posted a picture from the Rockets' locker room after the game:
Harden had 25 points on an efficient 14 shots, adding seven assists. It was his third straight game making at least half of his shots.
In more fun news—unless you're Wesley Johnson or a member of his immediate family—Harden also did this:
"I've been in my bag all year so, it's just one of those moves where I had to make him dance a little bit and made the shot," Harden said.
Capela dominated the matchup of bigs with DeAndre Jordan, scoring 22 points and adding 14 rebounds. The big man has racked up 10 double-doubles during the Rockets' streak while playing his typically stellar defense in the middle. Jordan was limited to just four points but did grab 16 boards. The Clippers were outscored by a team-worst 18 points with him on the floor.
Chris Paul, who had an off shooting night on his way to an eight-point, eight-assist outing, had the best plus-minus (+21) of the game. Eric Gordon scored 22 points off the bench, and Trevor Ariza added 11 to round out the double-digit scorers for Houston, which was a surprising 13-of-43 from distance.
The Clippers were led by a 24-point effort from Tobias Harris. Montrezl Harrell also continued his stretch of strong play off the bench with a 22-point night off the bench. Harrell has been in double digits each of the last four games.
The Rockets' next game will come Saturday night when they host the Boston Celtics on national television. Boston hasn't looked like a title contender of late but could pose a threat to the Rockets stretching their winning streak to 15.
The Clippers next host the New York Knicks on Friday.
