Rockets rout the Raptors, 98-76

Posted: February 21, 2015 -- 11:25 pm.

HOUSTON, TX (Toyota Center) -- Corey Brewer scored a season-high 26 points to lead the Houston Rockets to a 98-76 rout of the Toronto Raptors. Brewer led the Rockets' bench brigade. Brewer (26 points); Terrence Jones (11 points, 9 rebounds and 3 blocked shots); and Josh Smith (8 points and five rebounds) combined to score 45 of the Rockets' 48 bench points Saturday night.

"Brew did what he does every game. He brings energy," James Harden said after the game. "He gets very active on the defensive end and gets out in transition."

Kevin McHale added: "I thought (Corey) Brew(er) played great. He had a Corey Brewer game with high energy, attacking the basket and just played really well."

The game was hardly a masterpiece by either team.

Both teams struggled to make shots in the first half; and, when they weren't clanging shots off the rim, both teams turned the ball over: the Raptors committed 10 of their 15 first-half turnovers in the second quarter while the Rockets turned the ball over 11 times in the first half (seven in the second quarter).

The Rockets played slightly less poorly than the Raptors in the first half and led 40-36 at halftime. The Rockets' starting five combined to score 10 points and missed 19 of 22 field goals in the opening 24 minutes.

Brewer scored 14 points in the half.

Patrick Beverley and James Harden did not make a single field goal (0 for 13) in the half.

Harden nearly outscored the Raptors in the third quarter. Harden scored 16 points while the Raptors scored 17.

Houston led the Raptors 68-53 after three quarters.

The Rockets blew the game open in the fourth quarter with a 17-8 run to take their largest lead of the game (85-61) with just 5:17 remaining.

In addition to his season-high 26 points, Brewer also pulled down 10 rebounds.

After the game, Brewer told the media Saturday's win over Toronto helped erase the sting of Friday night's listless performance against the Dallas Mavericks.

"Last night was a rough game. We didn't have any energy coming back from the break and it bit us pretty bad, "So, tonight I felt like personally I had to bring energy because last night I didn't have any energy myself. So, I just tried to come out and play hard and everything worked out tonight."

Friday night, while the Rockets were losing in Dallas, the Raptors were routing the Atlanta Hawks in Atlanta; however, Saturday night was quite a different story.

Raptors' head coach Dwayne Casey said, "When you don’t come out ready to play mentally and physically, I don't care who you are. You're going to get your behind handed to you. Tonight, we didn't come out with the right mindset; and, they were the hungrier team and you have to shake their hand. They're a good team and in the top of the West for a reason; and, they were hungrier, played harder and did all the hard and grimy things that we did last night that we didn't do tonight."

Terrence Jones had much more bounce in his step than in previous games.

“Definitely. I just feel more agile, able to jump," Jones said. "I really need to be able to jump and just have energy. That's what I'm trying to bring."

Jones had one sensational sequence during 24 seconds of the second quarter: first, Jones finished an alley-oop with a slam dunk; then, Jones blocked a lay-up attempt by former Rockets player Patrick Patterson; lastly, after racing down the court, Jones finished sequence a slam dunk from the right side of the basket.

The Rockets held Toronto to 25-77 FG shooting (.325) and moved to 11-0 when holding an opponent to less than 40.0% FG shooting.

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