NBA on Dec. 29: Straight wins for Rockets, revenge for GSW

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The 2018-19 NBA regular season finished Saturday with another nine games. The Houston Rockets continued to claim their fourth straight victory by defeating the New Orleans Pelicans 108-104. The Golden State Warriors took revenge on the Portland Trail Blazers with an easy win of 115-105. Meanwhile, Washington Wizards point-guard John Wall will miss the rest of the season due to foot surgery.

James Harden drops another 40+point game

James Harden of the Houston Rockets reacts to referee call in the game. /VCG Photo

Houston's James Harden continued his recent crazy scoring performance by putting down 41 points, nine rebounds and six assists. Eric Gordon and Danuel House were a big help for Harden in the starting lineups with 21 and 15 points respectively.

New Orleans saw four members of their first squad score over 20 points: Julius Randle dropped the team's highest 23 points and 11 rebounds while Anthony Davis tied him in rebounding and scored 22 points. Jrue Holiday delivered the court's highest nine assists plus 20 points. E'Twaun Moore put down 22 points and made the most three-pointers for the Pelicans.

Anthony Davis #23 of the New Orleans Pelicans defends the paint in the game. /VCG Photo

Having won a close game against the Dallas Mavericks one day earlier (114-112) really consumed New Orleans' strength, especially that of Davis. Unlike the incredible player, who dropped 48 pints and 17 rebounds on Friday, Davis only shot 13 times on Saturday, the fourth most in his team. He spent most of his efforts on defense by remaining in the paint for most of the time.

Such tactics worked for the Pelicans as they made the Rockets' center Clint Capela almost disappear from the court with only six points and seven rebounds. The huge shadow of Davis made every Houston player rethink whether it's a good choice to attack the rim. As a result, the Rockets scored only 32 points in the restricted area, 24 fewer than the Pelicans' 56.

Eric Gordon of the Rockets shoots a free throw in the game. /VCG Photo

However, without Davis in offense, New Orleans lacked the league's second-best scorer who could drop an average of 28.5 points per game. Thanks to that, the team failed on their last breath to tie the score. By contrast, Houston had James Harden, the guy who could score 33 points on average every game.

Harden again proved his ability by making seven three-pointers and 14 free throws to get his 41 points. After this game, he (1,793) passed Rashard Lewis (1,787) to rank No.15 in NBA 3-pt scoring. This was also his ninth consecutive 30+scoring game and Harden was four games away from Moses Malone to set a record in the Rockets.

Klay Thompson returns with his three-pointers

Klay Thompson #11 of the Golden State Warriors takes an interview after the game. /VCG Photo

Klay Thompson dropped Golden State's highest score of 32 points via his 4 out of 5 three-pointers. Both Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant put down 25 points and Curry also delivered the most assists in his team at nine.

Damian Lillard scored the court's highest 40 points yet his back-court partner C. J. McCollum was frozen from the 3-pt line by missing all five shots there to get only 14 points. The team's center Jusuf Nurkic remained remarkable in the paint with 21 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists.

Thompson #11 shoots a corner three-pointer in the game. /VCG photo

Having learnt their lesson from losing to the Trail Blazers on Thursday, the Warriors from the beginning tried to speed up the game by driving transition and early offense. Their plan worked as they led in early offense scoring 29-9. A better piece of news for Golden State was that Klay Thompson finally rediscovered the target.

Before Saturday, Thompson failed to reach 20 points in six straight games and his below-40-percent 3-pt rate was also unimaginable. But that has passed. Having made 12 of 21 shots in total, including 4 out of 5 three-pointers, Thompson proved that he's still one of the best 3-pt shooters in the league. His teammates also tried to offer help by passing the ball to and setting screen for him.

Damian Lillard #0 of the Portland Trail Blazers attacks the rim under the defense of Kevin Durant. /VCG Photo

By contrast, Lillard again failed to receive enough support from his teammates. Nurkic was good, but he's not a playmaker and he did not have enough strength to play long and remain efficient on the court, not to mention that the Trail Blazers are not playing every game against the Warriors, which have difficulty defending big men from inside. Portland's weakness was clear the entire time: the rest of the team did not know how to play without Lillard and McCollum.

John Wall says goodbye to the season

John Wall of the Washington Wizards will undergo season-ending surgery. /VCG Photo

The Washington Wizards on Saturday announced that John Wall will undergo a surgery to fix a “Haglund's deformity and a chronic Achilles tendon injury” in his left heel and thus will be away from basketball activity for six to eight months. Frankly speaking, the 2018-19 NBA season is literally over for Wall.

Though this injury did not stop Wall from playing for the team, it had a bad impact on his performance already, which could be seen by his career-low average rebounding per game (3.6) and lower-than-career-average assisting (8.7). Considering that the Wizards so far have already lost 23 of 37 games and ranked only 11th in the Eastern Conference, making Wall play with an injury will neither help the team nor himself.

Other games on Saturday included: (away teams come first)

Brooklyn Nets 115-129 Milwaukee Bucks

Charlotte Hornets 126-130 Washington Wizards

Cleveland Cavaliers 108-111 Atlanta Hawks

Boston Celtics 112-103 Memphis Grizzlies

New York Knicks 97-129 Utah Jazz

Denver Nuggets 122-118 Phoenix Suns

San Antonio Spurs 122-111 Los Angeles Clippers