DENVER (AP) \u2014 Kevin Durant scored 31 points, Reed Sheppard scored the final 11 points of the third quarter to blow open a close game, and the Houston Rockets rolled past the Denver Nuggets 115-101 on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Sheppard was 6 for 9 from long range and scored 28 points. His last bucket came on a steal and a slam after the Nuggets reserves had trimmed a 21-point deficit to 107-97 in the closing minutes.<\/p>\n
The Rockets avenged a loss earlier in the week at Denver and snapped the Nuggets\u2019 six-game winning streak. Durant was 5 for 6 from 3-point range and Jabari Smith was 5 for 11 from long range for 22 points.<\/p>\n
The Rockets shot 19 of 35 from long range (54%) to Denver\u2019s 8 of 29 (27%).<\/p>\n
Nikola Jokic led Denver with 25 points and Jamal Murray scored 16.<\/p>\n
Denver coach Dave Adelman was ejected with 8:40 left in the game after arguing that Jokic should have gotten a whistle.<\/p>\n
The Nuggets had pulled to within 71-66 with 1:29 left in the third quarter when Sheppard swished a pair of 3-pointers around a turnover by Murray. He sank two free throws and capped his run with another 3-pointer that gave the Rockets an 82-66 lead heading into the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
Little went right for Denver, which was without star defender Peyton Watson (right trunk bruise) to guard Durant.<\/p>\n
The rematch came three days after Rockets coach Ime Udoka was fined $25,000 for publicly criticizing the officiating in Houston\u2019s 128-125 overtime loss to the Nuggets on Monday night.<\/p>\n
He had little to complain about in this one, especially after Sheppard\u2019s 3s short-circuited Denver\u2019s comeback.<\/p>\n
The Rockets took a 53-45 halftime lead after Josh Okogie hit a trio of 3-pointers, fueling an 11-0 run in the second quarter that helped Houston take control. <\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Rockets: Visit the Sacramento Kings on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Nuggets: Host the Utah Jazz on Monday night.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/p>\n
Ashlyn Stapleton, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER (AP) \u2014 Kevin Durant scored 31 points, Reed Sheppard scored the final 11 points of the third…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-358717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}