{"id":357558,"date":"2025-12-19T04:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T04:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/357558\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T04:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T04:41:08","slug":"pelicans-133-128-rockets-19-dec-2025-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/357558\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelicans 133-128 Rockets (19 Dec, 2025) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW ORLEANS — \u2014 Saddiq Bey<\/a> scored 21 of his season-high 29 points after halftime, and the New Orleans Pelicans<\/a> overcame a 25-point, third-quarter deficit to beat the Houston Rockets<\/a> 133-128 in overtime on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Trey Murphy scored 27 points and Herb Jones had 18 points and a career-high eight steals before fouling out for the Pelicans, who’ve won three straight after winning just three of their first 25 games. <\/p>\n

Jordan Poole<\/a> scored 15 points, capped by two free throws with 12 seconds left in overtime that put the Pelicans up 131-128. Houston’s Reed Sheppard<\/a> missed two shots from 3-point range in the final seconds before Bey got the rebound and hit game-sealing free throws with 2 seconds left in the extra period as a jubilant crowd that had been on its feet since the final minutes of regulation celebrated the unlikely comeback.<\/p>\n

Kevin Durant<\/a> scored 32 points and Alperen Sengun<\/a> had 28 for Houston, but Sengun was unable to get off a shot for the win after dribbling into the paint in the final seconds of regulation.<\/p>\n

Sengun missed two free throws with 43 seconds left in the fourth quarter, allowing New Orleans to complete the second-half comeback and tie it at 117 on Bey’s driving finger roll with 31 seconds to play.<\/p>\n

Rookie Derik Queen<\/a> had 16 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks, and his 18-foot jumper sparked an 11-0 run early in the fourth quarter. The surge ended with Bey’s dunk and pulled the Pelicans to 101-96.<\/p>\n

Durant helped Houston dominate early by scoring 13 points in the first quarter, hitting his first five shots, including three 3s.<\/p>\n

The Pelicans, by contrast, missed 20 of 29 shots in the paint during the first half.<\/p>\n

Durant had 18 points by halftime, when Houston led 67-45.<\/p>\n

New Orleans methodically trimmed its deficit to 13 in the third quarter before entering the fourth quarter trailing 99-83.<\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

Rockets: At the Denver Nuggets<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Pelicans: Host the Indiana Pacers<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/www.apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW ORLEANS — \u2014 Saddiq Bey scored 21 of his season-high 29 points after halftime, and the New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-357558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}