Rockets hold off Hornets, 100-96

Posted: November 14, 2012 -- 11:53pm CST.

HOUSTON, TX (Toyota Center) – The Houston Rockets erupted for 39 points in the second quarter and hung on to defeat the New Orleans Hornets 100-96 Wednesday night in front of an announced crowd of 14,535 fans. (To put the second quarter scoring barrage in perspective, the Rockets (4-4) scored a combined 36 points in the second half.)

James Harden scored a game-high 30 points on an efficient 10 for 20 shooting from the field. However, Toney Douglas (12 points) and Marcus Morris (13 points) were key to the Rockets victory.

Douglas and Morris each made three of four 3-point attempts in the second quarter to erase a 27-25 deficit at the end of the first quarter. As effective as Morris was in the first half with 11 points, Morris was equally as effective on defense in the second half.

"Those guys provide a huge spark for us," Chandler Parsons said. "We're going to need them throughout the season. When the starting five comes out flat like that, that's their (the bench) job to come out here and give us a boost and give us energy and that's exactly what they did. They were a big part of the win tonight.”

Thanks to the 39 point explosion, the Rockets led the Hornets 64-45 at halftime.

“I think the second quarter is about as good as we can play," coach Kelvin Sampson said. "Our second unit energy, the ball movement, I thought was outstanding.”

The lead grew to 21 (72-51) points in the third quarter; but, the Rockets got stagnant on offense and porous on defense.

The Hornets (3-3) scored 11 straight points to cut the Rockets lead to 72-62; but, Omer Asik and Greg Smith stemmed the tide and combined for eight points to increase the lead to 80-64.

The Rockets led 85-76 after three quarters.

Brian Roberts scored seven points early in the fourth quarter to trim the Rockets lead to 89-85; but, once again, Asik dunked (assist from Harden) to stop the bleeding. Harden sank to free throws to increase the lead to eight points; but, a three-point bucket from Hornets forward Ryan Anderson trimmed the lead to five points.

Asik finished the game with 15 points and 12 rebounds for his 4th double-double of the season.

Harden nailed a long jump shot and assisted on a three-point basket by Chandler Parsons to give the Rockets a 98-88 lead with only 3 minutes and 26 seconds remaining.

The game appeared over at that point; but, Hornets' guard Greivis Vasquez had other plans. Vasquez sank two deep three-point shots -- sandwiched around a putback layup by Ryan Anderson -- and, in the blink of an eye, the Rockets lead was down to two points (98-96) with 1:49 remaining.

During this mini-run by the Hornets, the Rockets' offense went into iso-mode which resulted in zero points until a HUGE turnaround jump shot by Parsons with the shot clock about to expire which gave the Rockets a 100-96 lead.

Neither team scored in the final 65 seconds.

“The bad second quarter was our biggest problem as we gave up 39 points," Hornets head coach Monty Williams said. "I’m just not used to that and I want our guys to understand that is no way to play the game of basketball. You’re not going to overcome quarters like that on most nights in this league. We won three quarters and only had 11 turnovers and still lose the game. There’s something extraordinary happening and it was the 39 (point) quarter and we only scored 18. When you have a quarter like that it’s hard to rebound but I thought the guys on our team showed a lot of guts and character getting back in the game. It was a lot of good stuff but too little too late.”

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