HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Kevin Durant scored 29 points and the Houston Rockets extended their winning streak to eight games with a 113-102 win Thursday night over the Philadelphia 76ers, who were missing Joel Embiid after he had an appendectomy.<\/p>\n
The 76ers, who are fighting for a playoff spot, will be without Embiid indefinitely. He had surgery in Houston on Thursday after being stricken with appendicitis overnight.<\/p>\n
Jabari Smith Jr. and Amen Thompson added 19 points each for the Rockets, who have clinched a postseason berth but are contending with Denver and the Lakers for playoff seeding in the West.<\/p>\n
Tyrese Maxey scored 23 points for Philadelphia and VJ Edgecombe added 21. The Sixers lost their third straight and dropped into a tie with Charlotte for eighth place in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
Houston led by 23 after three quarters, but Philadelphia used a 16-0 run to get within 101-94 with about five minutes to play. Durant made a 3-pointer after that to end a scoring drought of almost five minutes for the Rockets and Aaron Holiday made a 3 on the next possession to push the lead to 107-94 with four minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia scored the next eight points, with the last five from Edgecombe, to get within five. But another 3-pointer by Durant put Houston ahead 110-102 with just over a minute left.<\/p>\n
They struggled for most of the game, trailing by nine after the first quarter and 17 by halftime. The Rockets stretched the lead to 96-73 at the end of the third before the Sixers finally got going in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Sixers: Visit Indiana on Friday night.<\/p>\n
Rockets: Host Minnesota on Friday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Kevin Durant scored 29 points and the Houston Rockets extended their winning streak to eight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[88073,42158,64,63,726,5145,196980,37975,7216,146000,146002,145996,280639,145998,285695,269751,291614,85,52204,9694],"class_list":{"0":"post-597625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-aaron-holiday","9":"tag-amen-thompson","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-basketball","13":"tag-houston","14":"tag-jabari-smith","15":"tag-joel-embiid","16":"tag-kevin-durant","17":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","18":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","19":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","20":"tag-product-32547-ap-online-basketball-game-stories","21":"tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","22":"tag-product-40809-ap-pennsylvania-sports-only","23":"tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","24":"tag-rockets-76ers-score","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-tyrese-maxey","27":"tag-vj-edgecombe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597625","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=597625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}