The short-handed Houston Rockets were good enough Thursday night to win their first game after James Harden's trade request was granted.
The Rockets, who had only nine available players due to injuries and the pending arrivals of newcomers, capped off what first-year head coach Stephen Silas called "a crazy 48 hours" with a 109-105 road win over the San Antonio Spurs.
It was an especially satisfying victory for a team that heard Harden, the longtime franchise cornerstone, publicly declare that the Rockets were inadequate and couldn't "be fixed" after a lopsided loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night, when the 2018 MVP was aware that trade talks had intensified and a deal could be done soon.