{"id":377615,"date":"2025-12-30T09:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/377615\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T09:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:39:07","slug":"kevin-durants-30-points-power-rockets-to-126-119-win-over-pacers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/377615\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant&#8217;s 30 points power Rockets to 126-119 win over Pacers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">HOUSTON &#8212; Kevin Durant scored 30 points to lead the Houston Rockets to a 126-119 win over the Indiana Pacers on Monday night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">It\u2019s the second straight 30-point game for Durant and his 10th this season, his first in Houston since a blockbuster summer trade from Phoenix.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Jabari Smith Jr. had 21 points with 10 rebounds and Amen Thompson added 20 points, eight rebounds and seven assists for the Rockets, who have won three in a row after dropping four of their previous five games during a tough road trip.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">It\u2019s the ninth consecutive loss for the Pacers, who have the NBA\u2019s worst record at 6-27 with <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/indiana-pacers-preview-haliburton-19967c34278c9bc30b4da95997bd07b3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tyrese Haliburton out all season<\/a> with an Achilles injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Rockets led by 27 to start the fourth and were up by 16 when coach Ime Udoka cleared the bench with 2 1\/2 minutes to go. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Pascal Siakam had 23 points to lead the Pacers and Aaron Nesmith added 14 with four 3-pointers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Rockets led by 16 at halftime and used a 12-3 spurt after the break to push the lead to 78-51 with about 10 minutes left in the third quarter. Smith had two 3-pointers in that stretch and Durant added four points.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Houston remained up by 27 midway through the third before the Pacers went on a 14-2 run to get within 89-74 with about four minutes remaining in the quarter. Siakam scored six points in that time and Bennedict Mathurin and Andrew Nembhard capped the run with 3s. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Rockets rediscovered their offense after that, using a 16-4 run, with 3-pointers from Reed Sheppard and Dorian Finney-Smith, to take a 105-78 lead into the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Houston\u2019s Steven Adams had eight points and five rebounds in his second straight start for All-Star Alperen Sengun, who is out with calf tightness. Adams left in the third quarter with a sprained right ankle and didn\u2019t return.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Pacers: Host Orlando on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Rockets: Visit Brooklyn on Thursday night. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">AP NBA: <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON &#8212; Kevin Durant scored 30 points to lead the Houston Rockets to a 126-119 win over the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[184667,966,355,1063,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-377615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-184667","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-basketball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377615","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=377615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}