DENVER — The Rockets played through sorrow, played shorthanded and, for much of the day, played well enough to see the opening to get a win they needed in ways they had not imagined when their road trip began.
As if forcing themselves to push through pain, having learned of the death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others less than an hour before tipoff, the Rockets rushed to a lead off a sensational offensive start.
That hot shooting, with James Harden out with a bruised left thigh, would be difficult to make last. When it faded, even just for a stretch in the fourth quarter, the Nuggets surged, taking a 117-110 win as the Rockets broke down for a stretch too long and late to overcome.
The Rockets never stopped the Nuggets often enough to build much of a cushion. Even with a 36-point first quarter in which the Rockets made 57.1 percent of their shots and 5 of 11 3s, they never led by double digits. The nine-point lead they brought into the second quarter quickly shrank to a two-possession game, as it would remain most of the way until a sudden Denver run in the fourth quarter.
The Rockets led two minutes into the fourth quarter when the offense that had kept the game tight betrayed them. In a span of four minutes, they made just two of six shots — both on drives — and committed three turnovers.
Until then, the Rockets had done what was needed. Facing a Denver defense that stays home on shooters, forcing the second-worst 3-point shooting percentage in the NBA for its opponents, the Rockets made 37 percent of their 3s through three quarters. They had committed a manageable 11 turnovers.
With the game on the line, however, the Rockets misfired, making just one 3-pointer, the corner 3 P.J. Tucker put in to end the Nuggets’ run and move the Rockets back within five with six minutes left. The Rockets committed seven turnovers in the quarter.
The Rockets had until then gotten enough scoring from their four-guard rotation of Russell Westbrook, Eric Gordon, Austin Rivers and Ben McLemore. The Nuggets countered with their usual excellence from Nikola Jokic, who had a triple-double before the third quarter was complete. But early in the fourth quarter, the Nuggets also started sinking 3s and began to pull away.
With Jokic out, Monte Morris sank a pair of 3-pointers before Malik Beasley put in a jumper from just inside the 3-point line, and Michael Porter Jr. made another 3, giving the Nuggets a 13-4 run and an eight-point lead.
After the Rockets got within three on a Westbrook drive with 3½ minutes remaining, Nuggets guard Will Barton banked in a straight-on jumper, Eric Gordon missed a 3-pointer, and Jerami Grant made a pair of free throws for a seven-point margin. From there, the Rockets could not get the necessary stops to mount a challenge.
Westbrook led the Rockets with 32 points, the seventh game of his past eight in which he has scored at least 30 (scoring 28 in the other). But forced to run the offense through his 39 minutes, Westbrook also had a season-high 10 turnovers.
Gordon, in the starting lineup with Harden out (and as he will be Monday against the Jazz with Westbrook sitting out the second half of the back-to-back), had 19 points but made just 2 of 10 shots. The Rockets found scoring all around Westbrook for three quarters, but in the fourth, when he made 6 of 11 shots, the rest of the Rockets went 4 of 11, providing the opening for Denver to pull away with one brief surge.
By then, the Rockets were empty, playing with emotions drained before the game even started, then taking a loss just when there might be something to lessen even a touch of the pain.
jonathan.feigen@chron.com
twitter.com/jonathan_feigen
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January 27, 2020 at 06:30AM
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