After a victory in San Antonio on Christmas Day, the Rockets didn’t show any fatigue when they welcomed Memphis to the Toyota Center on Thursday night. Despite going down early, they rallied by outscoring the Grizzlies 34-20 in the final session for a 100-92 win. Plus, James Harden, who scored 27 points despite going just 2-for-9 from the field, found Chandler Parsons for a sick give-and-go alley-oop on the break.
Harden shot 25 foul shots (making 22 of them) for his high-scoring night despite just a pair of field goals in 43 minutes of action (what ankle injury?). Terrence Jones added 20, Parsons 15 and Jeremy Lin 18 points in the victory.
Zach Randolph led the Griz with 23 points, 17 boards and five assists in the loss, but Memphis really needs center Marc Gasol back as soon as possible. The Griz are 12-16 in the West, which would mean home-court advantage in the East, but stands for ping pong balls in the Western Conference. There are going to be a lot more faces like Z-Bo’s here until he gets his grit n’ grind partner and the NBA’s 2013 DPOY back.
What do you think?
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