{"id":382794,"date":"2026-01-02T03:55:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T03:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/382794\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T03:55:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T03:55:11","slug":"kevin-durant-amen-thompson-lead-houston-rockets-past-brooklyn-nets-for-fourth-straight-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/382794\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant, Amen Thompson lead Houston Rockets past Brooklyn Nets for fourth straight victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Kevin Durant<\/a> had 22 points and a season-high 11 assists, Amen Thompson<\/a> scored 23 points and the Houston Rockets<\/a> beat the Brooklyn Nets<\/a> 120-96 on Thursday night for their fourth straight victory.<\/p>\n

Alperen Sengun<\/a> had 20 points, six rebounds and six assists after a two-game absence for the Rockets, who started fast in both halves to win in Brooklyn for the first time in seven years. Tari Eason<\/a> finished with 15 points and nine rebounds, and Jabari Smith Jr.<\/a> and Reed Sheppard<\/a> each scored 14 points.<\/p>\n

Sengun was 8 for 12 from the floor after sitting out two games with a left calf injury.<\/p>\n

Cam Thomas<\/a> scored 21 points for the Nets, who dropped their second straight after winning three in a row for the only time this season. Ziaire Williams<\/a> added 14.<\/p>\n

Michael Porter Jr.<\/a>, who leads the Nets with a career-high 25.8 points per game, missed the game with an illness along with injured starting guards Egor Demin<\/a> and Terance Mann<\/a>. Without them, Brooklyn never led in its first home loss to Houston since Nov. 2, 2018, after winning the last six.<\/p>\n

The Nets went 7-4 in December and allowed an NBA-low 104.6 points per game, but the Rockets jumped on them immediately to start the new year. Houston made its first seven shots en route to a 16-5 lead, went up by 14 in the second quarter and took a 53-42 advantage to the break.<\/p>\n

Houston then made its first five 3-pointers and started 8 for 9 overall in the second half. Smith and Eason each hit two 3s and Thompson made one in a 19-5 run that extended their 11-point lead to 74-49 when Smith hit back-to-back 3s.<\/p>\n

The Rockets played without centers Steven Adams<\/a> (sprained right ankle) and Clint Capela<\/a> (illness).<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Rockets: Visit Dallas on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Nets: Visit Washington on Friday.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/p>\n

Brian Mahoney, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Kevin Durant had 22 points and a season-high 11 assists, Amen Thompson scored 23…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-382794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382794","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=382794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}