It’s tough to beat the Houston Rockets when James Harden is on fire, but it’s even tougher when Sam Dekker drops 30 in his first career start. No one saw that coming, right?
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | T | |
| Grizzlies | 22 | 27 | 23 | 23 | 95 |
| Rockets | 32 | 26 | 33 | 28 | 119 |
When teams start planning on how they’re going to stop the Houston Rockets, James Harden is first on the list. I doubt the Memphis Grizzlies were preparing to shut down Sam Dekker.
The Rockets shot a scorching 51.3-percent from the field and 38.1 from behind the arc. MVP candidate, James Harden, did his usual damage with 29 points and 10 assists. Sam Dekker dropped a whopping 30 points while shooting 12-19 from the floor. As for the Grizzlies, it’s tough to win games shooting 37.1-percent from the field.
Although the box score looks bad, there were bright spots for Memphis. With a game-high 32 points, Marc Gasol recorded his third 30-point game of the season and 12th of his career. Mike Conley recorded a solid 15 points and 6 assists. Chandler Parsons had a nice 12 points in 22 minutes after resting against the Kings.
Quick hits
- With Memphis committing 12 turnovers and the Rockets committing 13, Houston scored 22 points off of the Grizzlies turnovers while Memphis only connected for 12.
- After playing so well in the third quarter against the Kings, this was not the case for last night’s game. While only down four with seven minutes left in the third, the Grizz gave up a 26-7 run and trailed by 19 at the end of the quarter.
- The Grizzlies lost the transition game, being outscored 19-7 on the fast break. Memphis, like usual, struggled getting back to stop the ball.
Injury Report
Troy Daniels suffered a grade 1 MCL sprain against the Kings, and was not active against the Rockets. He is listed as day-to-day and hopefully the Grizzlies’ spark plug will be back soon.
What’s next?
The Grizzlies take on the Toronto Raptors Wednesday (Jan. 25) at 7:00 CST. With it being a home game, Grind City needs to be loud in order to affect Demar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry.