{"id":333285,"date":"2025-12-06T04:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T04:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/333285\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T04:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T04:19:07","slug":"durant-reaches-31000-career-points-as-rockets-dominate-suns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/333285\/","title":{"rendered":"Durant reaches 31,000 career points as Rockets dominate Suns"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON — – Kevin Durant<\/a> had 28 points to become the eighth player in NBA history to score 31,000 career points as the Houston Rockets<\/a> rolled to a 117-98 win over the Phoenix Suns<\/a> on Friday night.<\/p>\n

It was Durant’s first game against his former team since a blockbuster seven-team trade that sent Jalen Green<\/a> and Dillon Brooks<\/a> to the Suns. Durant missed Houston’s 114-92<\/a> win at Phoenix on Nov. 24 for personal reasons.<\/p>\n

Amen Thompson<\/a> scored a season-high 31 to help the Rockets to their fifth victory in six games.<\/p>\n

Durant made two free throws for his first points of the night and hit jumper midway through the first quarter that gave the 15-time All-Star to reach the historic milestone<\/a>. Durant, who didn’t play in the fourth quarter, has 31,024 career points.<\/p>\n

The Rockets trailed by as many as nine early but used a 44-point second quarter, powered by 17 points from Durant, to take the lead.<\/p>\n

Houston was up by 11 with about 7 minutes left in the third before using a 16-2 run to make it 92-67 with about two minutes left in the quarter. Thompson had six points in that stretch and Durant and Reed Sheppard<\/a> both made 3-pointers for Houston. Phoenix had five turnovers during the spurt.<\/p>\n

Brooks had 23 points to lead the Suns, who lost for the third time in four games.<\/p>\n

Houston played without Alperen Sengun<\/a>, who missed the game with an illness. Steven Adams<\/a> started in his place and had four points and eight rebounds.<\/p>\n

The Rockets played a tribute video for Brooks during pregame introductions and played one for Green, who is out due to a hamstring injury, between the first and second quarters. Both players received hearty ovations from the crowd at the end of their videos.<\/p>\n

Green spent his first four seasons in Houston after being taken second overall by the club in the 2021 draft and Brooks spent the previous two seasons with the Rockets.<\/p>\n

Up Next<\/p>\n

Suns: Visit the Timberwolves Monday night.<\/p>\n

Rockets: Visit the Mavericks Saturday night.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON — – Kevin Durant had 28 points to become the eighth player in NBA history to score…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[168536,352,5050,355,6415,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-333285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-168536","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-houston-rockets","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-phoenix-suns","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}