For the second time in three games, a fourth-quarter rally by the Charlotte Hornets came a bit too late as they fell to the Rockets, 121-114, on Tuesday, Jan. 10 in Houston. Despite missing two starters against the NBA’s second-highest scoring team, the Hornets battled back from a 23-point deficit only to come up just short again in the final minute, losing for the fifth time in six games. Charlotte has also now lost 12-consecutive regular season road games in Houston dating back to their most recent such win on Dec. 22, 2004.
After a Frank Kaminsky three-pointer finally gave the Hornets a 111-110 lead with 2:27 remaining in the game, the Rockets rolled off five unanswered points to open up a four-point advantage with just under two minutes left on the clock. After an empty possession by both teams, Kemba Walker knocked down another shot from beyond the arc with 44.1 seconds to go but Houston responded with 6-0 run down the stretch to seal the win.
Kemba Walker led the Hornets with a team-high 25 points (5-of-11 from three-point range), six rebounds and a game-high-tying 10 assists in the loss. This is Walker’s fifth double-double of the season, tied for the second-highest single-season total of his NBA career (9; 2013-14).
James Harden tallied game-high totals across the board in scoring (40 points), rebounding (15) and assists (10) for his career-high-extending 11th triple-double of the season in the victory. Harden is now the fourth player in NBA history to record consecutive 40-point triple-doubles, joining Russell Westbrook, Michael Jordan and Pete Maravich.
Frank Kaminsky finished with 22 points on 8-of-14 shooting (career-high 4-of-9 from three-point range) and three rebounds. Charlotte connected on a season-high 19-of-43 three-point attempts (44.2 percent) while Houston hit 17-of-39 shots from long distance (43.6 percent). The Rockets drained 24-of-33 free-throw attempts (72.7 percent) while the Hornets were successful on just 7-of-9 trips to the charity stripe (77.8 percent). Houston outscored the Hornets in fast-break points, 25-2.
“What you can’t do is what we did in the first half. We gave up 13 fast-break points — six of them after makes — on plays where we’re disappointed or we feel like we got fouled or we turned the ball over. Then also had nine second-chance points. So that’s 22 points. They’re hard enough to keep down without that. In the second half, we ran back on defense and we did a better job rebounding. It’s always going to come back to the basic principles. Those are things that until this year, we’ve been really good at and if we want to win, we’ll get back to that.”
