Feature.The Harden Rebellion
With a decisive triple by
CJ McCollum
, the Portland Trail Blazers achieved a long-suffering 128-126 victory in overtime against the Houston Rockets, who had numerous casualties due to the coronavirus but had a spectacular performance by
James Harden
.
The guard, the leading scorer of the last three NBA seasons, had 44 points and 17 rebounds at the end of a convulsive week in which he intensified his pulse with the Rockets to be traded and was fined for attending a party on Monday at a interior space.
Despite the great night of their figures
Damian Lillard
(32 points and 9 assists) and CJ McCollum (44 and 8), the Blazers suffered much more than expected to defeat the Rockets, who traveled to Portland with only nine players, two of them newbies.
The NBA had to suspend the Rockets' first game of the season against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday because they did not reach the minimum of eight available players due to several cases of covid-19 in their locker room.
This Saturday they continued to have sensitive casualties such as their new signings
John Wall
and
DeMarcus Cousins
but even so, under the guidance of Harden and center
Christian Wood
(31 points and 13 rebounds), Houston was ahead of much of the game with advantages of up to 15 points.
Portland hit the gas down the stretch and Lillard was able to avoid extra time but missed the last pitch under a fierce defense from PJ Tucker.
In the final minute of overtime, Harden hit two 3s to put the Rockets ahead 126-125 with just 15.3 seconds remaining, but McCollum responded with his ninth career-best triple of the game.
With 6.3 seconds remaining, Harden had the last possession but his attempted pass to Tucker was intercepted by
Rob Covington
and the Blazers took their first win of the season.
Bring Morant wins the duel
In a duel between two of the best young point
guards in
the NBA,
Trae Young's
Atlanta Hawks
defeated
Ja Morant's
Memphis Grizzlies 122-112
.
Young, 22, had 36 points (10/24 shooting from the field) and 9 assists to lead the Hawks' away win, who added two wins in their first two games of the season.
For the Grizzlies, Ja Morant, 21, had 28 points and 7 assists and forward
Kyle Anderson
20 points and 14 rebounds.
Confusion in New York with T-shirts
In another of 10 games on Saturday, the Philadelphia 76ers beat the New York Knicks by a clear 109-89 led by Cameroonian center
Joel Embiid
(27 points and 10 rebounds) and Australian point guard
Ben Simmons
(15 and 9).
The New York team, in which
Julius Randle
(25 points and 7 rebounds) and
Alec Burks (
22 and 5)
stood out
, starred in the curiosity of the day when guard Reggie Bullock jumped onto the court with a shirt that he wore on the His number 25 on his chest and 23 on his back, the same one that his teammate
Mitchell Robinson
plays with
.
In this way the Knicks had two players on the court with the same number 23 until several minutes later, when the referees detected the error, Bullock went to the bench to change his shirt.
Westbrook's second triple-double
In Charlotte, young Oklahoma City Thunder point
guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
scored almost over the horn for the 109-107 victory over the Hornets.
Gilgeous-Alexander, to whom the Thunder have handed the team lead at age 22, finished with 24 points, 7 rebounds and 9 assists.
In the Hornets, guard
Devonte 'Graham had
14 points and 10 assists and rookie point
guard Lamelo Ball
, brother of Pelicans player
Lonzo Ball
, made his debut as a scorer in the NBA with 13 points in 15 minutes after reaching zero. on his debut Wednesday.
In Detroit, the Pistons fell 128-119 to the Cleveland Cavaliers in a two-overtime game and, in another loss at home, the Washington Wizards fell 130-120 to the Orlando Magic despite a triple-double from new signing
Russell Westbrook
( 15 points, 15 rebounds and 12 assists), the second in a row this season.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more
NBA
NBA 2020 - 2021 Harden's Rebellion
NBA A monster salary swap: Westbrook to Washington and Wall to Houston
NBA 2019 - 2020 Star treatment for Luka Doncic: against LeBron at Christmas and more games than almost anyone on US national television
See links of interest
Check Christmas Lottery
Arsenal - Chelsea