With a very impressive ending score of the game, James Harden isn’t really lamenting about what has he achieved so far.
He scored 28 points, snapping 32-game streak of his with at least 30, and on the other hands Houston Rockets has beaten the Atlanta Hawks 119 – 111 on Monday night.
He can finally took a deep breath after a long game, especially when he had no expectation of matching Wilt Chamberlain 65-game-strak, the best yet in NBA. Harden’s stretch with 30 or more points ranks second.
“Yeah I am. It was cool but I knew I wasn’t going to get to No. 1,” Harden said before walking away chuckling.
Houston took care a scoring outburst from a Hawks rookie namely Trae Young, who set his career high with 8 times 3-pointers, and 36 points. After his neck injury while competing with Golden State and missed all 10 3-pointers he attempted, he finally came back.
“This was the first time I was able to move it since a few days,” he said. “So it kind of felt good to go out there and just move it and run around. I hadn’t really done any movement or working out. I’ve been in bed really.”
He got to 28 points with 23.3 seconds left and had the ball on Houston’s last possession but did not attempt a shot from half court with the game in hand. When asked if the injury affected his shot he said: “I don’t care. Made shots, missed shots, we won the game.”
Harden last came up short of 30 points in a Dec. 11 win over Portland, when he had 29. During the streak, he scored 50 or more points four times, including a career-high 61 in a win at the Knicks on Jan. 23.
“Eventually it was going to have to end one of these days,” coach Mike D’Antoni said. “He’s unbelievable. He’ll start another one.”
Chris Paul added 20 points, and Eric Gordon hit four 3-pointers for 16 points.
The Hawks cut the lead to five on a basket by John Collins with about 2 1/2 minutes remaining. Harden missed his 10th 3-pointer seconds after that, but Harden was fouled on a 3-pointer on the next possession and made all of the free throws to make it 115-107.
Atlanta scored the first nine points of the fourth quarter, with five points including a long 3-pointer from Young, to cut the lead to one. P.J. Tucker got the Rockets going again when he made a 3-pointer to make it 98-94 with 8 1/2 minutes remaining.
Young’s hot shooting continued after that when he made his seventh 3 to cut the lead to one again.
