Rockets blast Knicks, 131-103

Posted: November 23, 2012 -- 11:23pm CST

HOUSTON, TX (Toyota Center) – In a game which began with a "can you top this?" first quarter between Chandler Parsons and Carmelo Anthony, the Houston Rockets raced past the New York Knicks in the second quarter and cruised to a 131-103 victory in front of 18,038 fans.

Chandler Parsons set the tone for the Houston Rockets (6-7) Friday night. Parsons scored 18 of his career-high 31 points in the first quarter (perfect 8 for 8 from the floor). Carmelo Anthony also scored 18 points in the first quarter which ended with the Rockets owning a 35-32 lead.

The defense optional game continued in the second quarter as the Rockets added 37 more points for a whopping 72 points in the first half and a 15 point (72-57) lead at halftime.

James Harden took over the scoring from Parsons with 16 points in the second quarter. Parsons scored 26 points in the half while Harden added 25.

Harden attempted 15 free throws in the first half. He made all 15.

Parsons made 11 of his 13 field goal attempts in the half (including 3 of 4 from downtown).

"I was extremely comfortable out there," said Parsons. "I felt like I had mismatches in the pick-and-roll. I always had a step, they (Knicks) were biting on shot fakes. James and Jeremy were finding me all day on threes in transition. That’s what we do best and that’s what we've got to keep doing, which is getting out and running and spacing the floor. Our spacing was unbelievable tonight. We've got to continue to play like this on the offensive end and keep playing defense."

The Rockets shot 52.4% (11 for 21) in the second quarter and 53.3% (24 for 45) in the opening half.

The third quarter was center Omer Asik's turn to light up the Knicks. Asik scored 10 points (4 for 5 field goals) and grabbed seven boards. Asik also frustrated Knicks center Tyson Chandler and received an elbow from Chandler during the period. Chandler was assessed a flagrant 1 foul by the refs.

Leading 104-80 after three quarters, the Rockets kept the pedal to the metal in the fourth quarter and outscored the Knicks 27-23 in the final 12 minutes.

The Knicks (8-3) entered Friday night's game as a good team on defense. The Rockets ran over and around the Knicks' defense the entire game and rolled to the easy victory.

Mike Woodson, Knicks head coach said, "It was our effort on the ball in a one-on-one position, it’s been awful. It started in Dallas. This was unacceptable and an awful, awful performance on out part. We got the record we have because of the way we've been defending. Our defense has held us in, and has created offense for us, now we’re just trying to out score teams, and that’s not good enough."

Jeremy Lin scored 13 points in his first game versus his former team. Lin shot 50% (6 for 12) from the floor as well as pulled down 7 rebounds and dish out three assists.

After the game, Lin said, “The team is pretty different. There are some guys that are still there but for the most part. But it was good to compete with a couple of my old friends.”

Harden scored a team-high 33 points and handed out a game-high nine assists.

"I think we did a great job, especially at the beginning of the game, of coming out and just being in attack mode," Harden acknowledged. "Guys didn't settle, we made good shots and we made good passes. Defensively we locked in for basically the entire game. They (Knicks) made some tough shots, but during the entire game we stuck with it defensively."

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