The Toronto Raptors traveled to Houston to take on the hottest player in NBA and his hodgepodge assortment of spaceship teammates. The gameplan, on paper, was simple: stop James Harden from scoring, like, one hundred points. Harden was coming into the game in the midst of a scoring stretch that can only be described as god-like. We’re dealing with a player who has scored 30 or more points in 21 consecutive games and is averaging 45.3 points in January before last nights game.
So, stop Harden and you stop the Rockets, right? Wrong, apparently. The Rockets role players decided to show up in a big way on Friday night, they outscored Toronto 33-20 in the first quarter, stifling the Raptors numerous times on defense while Harden would dissect with a classic pick-and-roll on the other end.