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Recap: Rockets vs. Hornets - 12/31/2014

James Harden hit a career-high eight three-pointers en route to his league-leading 14th game of 30+ points and a 102-83 New Year’s Eve victory over the Hornets.

The Rockets have now won eight straight overall games against Charlotte now, and 10 straight over Charlotte at the Toyota Center to tie the longest active home winning streak against an opposing franchise (NYK).

James Harden started the game with a steal on Charlotte’s first possession – an omen of things to come as the Rockets finished with 10 steals to boost their average to 9.2 steals per game, third best in the NBA.

The Hornets came into the game allowing the fewest points off turnovers per game in the league at a paltry 12.5 points per game. Tonight though, the Rockets forced 18 turnovers and turned them into 22 points.

“We have struggled sometimes in the third quarter and tonight we wanted to make sure that we came out very aggressive, especially on the defensive end. Our defense starts some of our offense,” Trevor Ariza said.

Despite the defensive prowess, Charlotte kept scoring and had the lead after the first quarter. Dwight Howard put in work in the post with an alley-oop, a reverse dunk and an and-one layup, but 11 Houston turnovers in the first half kept Charlotte close.

The Rockets heated up as the first half closed with Josh Smith coming up with a steal and hitting Harden for one of his eight threes. Harden repaid his new teammate with an assist leading to a breakaway dunk that tied the game at 41.

In the third, Patrick Beverley scored eight points in the first 1:30 to fuel a 13-4 Rockets run capped by a Harden alley-oop to Howard from the 28-foot line.

“We had a little talk right there at the scorer's table before the third quarter started to pick up and turned our swag up a little bit, and that's what we did. We came out and started playing the way we know how to play. We just have to do that from the beginning of the games also,” Beverley said.

Harden scored 15 points in the third and nine more in the fourth as the Rockets built a double-digit lead and ran away with the game.  Their 19-point margin of victory is their largest of the season.

“I think [Harden] is getting a little more comfortable. I thought we had some really good shots that we missed tonight, but the ball movement was better. The way Charlotte plays, they pack the paint. They are the number one team in the league protecting the rim so we knew we were going to have open threes, we just had to make some. James made the lion's share of them for us,” Kevin McHale said.

Harden extended his streak to 5 straight games scoring 25+ on FG shooting greater than 50.0%.  This surpasses the longest streak in the NBA this year of 4 games (Anthony NYK, Davis NOP).  Tonight he had 36 points on 12-19 FG shooting to go with six assists and seven rebounds. The 36 points also mark his NBA-leading 14th game with 30+ points, no other player has double-digit games of 30+.

“I felt real comfortable. My shot felt good the entire night. I had confidence to shoot it. My team makes were looking for me off of pin downs, and in transition, and things like that. My job is to shoot the basketball and have confidence in it,” Harden said.

The Rockets travel to New Orleans to play the Pelicans Friday night.