The Rockets won their 17th game in a row after a 110-99 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night.
James Harden led the way once again, scoring 26 points, on 8-20 shooting.
Playing on the second night of a back-to-back, in what many viewed as a trap game in the team’s quest to keep on winning, Harden and his teammates played a solid team game to come away with the victory.
The Beard was dominant in the first half, scoring 21 of his 26 points in the first 24 minutes. That included a buzzer beater at the end of the second quarter that gave the team a 58-46 lead.
Houston is playing with a ton of confidence right now, and you can tell that aside from trying to win every game, they are trying to get better as a team each and every night in preparation for the road ahead come playoff time.
Chris Paul is a big part of that. While Harden is a quiet leader, and tends to lead by example for the most part, CP3 is extremely vocal, and isn’t afraid to confront someone if they are doing something wrong, even in a game like this where the outcome was never fully in doubt. He controlled the pace when needed, more so when Harden wasn’t on the court, scoring 16 points and dishing out 11 assists, including the game clinching bucket with 45.1 seconds that ended a last-gasp rally by the Bucks, who had cut the lead to a manageable margin just seconds earlier. This is the second time in Paul’s career one of his teams has rattled off 17 victories in a row. The other time came with the 2012-13 Los Angeles Clippers.
After a sluggish first half in which he scored only eight points, Giannis Antetokounmpo finished with 30 and basically was able to get anything and everything he wanted. And if he wasn’t able to score, he was getting fouled. The issue for Milwaukee remains the same as it has been for several years: Who is going to help Giannis? Khris Middleton is a solid player, but he is never going to be the second best player on a playoff contender in his career. Eric Bledsoe is a good player, but he can go cold for long stretches, and is undersized at the point guard position, which does not bode well in today’s NBA. This was the 6th loss in 7 games for the Bucks, who have not looked good since their initial burst of winning following the firing of Jason Kidd.
The Rockets, on the other hand, are on fire, and go for their 18th win in a row on Friday night in Toronto against the Raptors, who are arguably as hot as the Rockets. The Raptors have gone 14-2 in their last 16 games, and have outscored their opponents by more points during that stretch than the Rockets have.
This should be a highly intense game, and could end up being one of the best games of the year.