James Harden #13 of the Houston Rockets (Image: Getty)
James Harden and Clint Capela put on impressive performances on Sunday night to lift the Houston Rockets to a 104-101 home victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 1 of the NBA playoffs.
Harden finished with 44 points, including 7-of-12 shooting from three-point range, and Capela added some big dunks in the first half en route to the win. Capela had 24 points and 12 rebounds.
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Top-seeded Houston faced a tough challenge from eighth-seeded Minnesota. Strangely enough, the Rockets — who broke its own record for most 3s scored in a season — struggled on 3-point attempts on Sunday.
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Chris Paul, Eric Gordon, Trevor Ariza and P.J. Tucker combined to complete only 3 of their 22 attempts.
“We’ve had games like this throughout the season and the biggest thing that I’ve learned, that I think our teams knows is that we don’t stop shooting,” Paul told USA Today. “We still take the shots that we get and coming into Game 2 guess what? We’re going to shoot them again because we have that confidence.”
The Timberwolves have reached the postseason for the first time since 2004.
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Minnesota got the first nine points after halftime to gain a 56-54 lead. After a 3-pointer from Tucker, the Wolves went on a 6-1 run to get ahead again 62-58.
With about four minutes to go, the Rockets used a 9-0 run (seven of those points from Harden) to go up 94-86, and then Minnesota called a timeout. Jeff Teague made a pair of free throws for the Wolves after the timeout.
Paul made a strange mistake just moments before the final buzzer. With 8.7 seconds remaining, he tossed a pass out of bounds.
Houston defeated Minnesota 4-0 in their regular-season series, and won each game by an average of 15.8 points. The Rockets led 54-47 at the half on Sunday. Houston’s Ryan Anderson missed the contest with a sprained left ankle. Coach Mike D’Antoni said Anderson’s status for Game 2 remains uncertain.
Game 2 is set for Wednesday in Houston at 9:30pm EST.
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