Houston Rockets Cruise Over Denver Nuggets 114-100

The Houston Rockets are now complete with one of their roughest patches of their schedule yet — having four games in five nights with two back-to-backs this week.

Our team surprisingly got through this week with marked success despite the challenges that they were faced with.

But I honestly felt they finished right about where I thought they’d be — with a 3-2 record.

I knew the first back-to-back would be like hell for the Rockets as they faced the Atlanta Hawks on the road Tuesday night to fly back home to face the Memphis Grizzlies the next night.

They actually played hard in both instances — without James Harden against the Hawks — but sputtered in the 4th quarter as they seemed to have run out of gas.

But it’s remarkable to know that this team was flirting with the potential of going undefeated — 5-0 — for the week.

Oh well — you can’t win them all.

More from House of Houston

Last night, the Rockets flew up to the Mile High City to face the Denver Nuggets in the last game of the week.

Despite the Rockets likely feel of fatigue, they have the goods to beat a struggling team like the Nugs.

In the 1st quarter, things remained close until about the 4:43 mark where Hickson made a tip shot to start an 8-0 run that culminated with a Wilson Chandler dunk.

At that point, they took their largest lead of the game so far — 11 points — with 3:22 left in the 1st quarter. Nuggets 24, Rockets 13

A plethora of turnovers and missed shots contributed to the teams slide in the quarter.

But the Rockets went on a late 9-2 run the quarter to led by Corey Brewer, Josh Smith and the Beard to trail by only three points at the end of the 1st. Nuggets 28, Rockets 25

Brew totally owned this game and continued to show why he is such a valuable asset of the bench.

The Rockets started to take the controls and went up by as much as 11 points — 47-36 –with 4:41 left in the 1st half off a 12-2 run.

The Nuggets did make a push toward the end of the quarter to cut their deficit to seven after a Chandler layup on the drive with 15 seconds left but the Rockets were still in front 55-48 at the end of the first half.

The Nugs continued their pursuit to get back in the game continuing their hot scoring streak from the 1st half to make it 12-0 run after they closed within one off a Randy Foye free throw with 10:39 left. Rockets 55, Nuggets 54

They took a brief 62-58 lead after Foye hit a three-pointer and his 16th point of the game but Harden, Brewer and Donatas Motiejunas went to work to put their opponent away for good.

At the end of the 3rd, they led the Nugs 88-73.

It was more of the same for the 4th quarter as the Rockets led by as much as 21 points with 100-79 lead with 6:52 left off another signature Beard step-back jumper.

Our team pretty much was on cruise control after that, getting that eventual win of the Nuggets 114-100.

Harden led all Rockets scorers with 28 points and seven assists while Brew had 24 points and six rebounds.

Terrence Jones had 11 boards while J-Smoove had 10 points, 10 rebounds in 29 minutes off the bench.