{"id":410126,"date":"2026-01-16T04:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T04:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/410126\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T04:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T04:11:07","slug":"thunder-surge-in-fourth-quarter-to-defeat-rockets-111-91","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/410126\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder surge in fourth quarter to defeat Rockets 111-91"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON — – Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> scored 20 points, Chet Holmgren<\/a> added 18 and the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> pulled away in the fourth quarter to beat the Houston Rockets<\/a> 111-91 on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Cason Wallace<\/a> added 17 off the bench and the NBA-leading Thunder outscored Houston 34-16 in the final quarter to get a fifth straight victory.<\/p>\n

Kevin Durant<\/a> led Houston with 19 points, but he was 0 for 5 on 3-pointers and 7 for 23 overall on a night the Rockets made just 7 of 24 behind the arc.<\/p>\n

The Thunder led by two early in the fourth quarter before using an 11-2 run, with a 3-pointer from Ajay Mitchell<\/a> and two from Wallace, to make it 90-79 with less than nine minutes to go.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City remained up by nine later in the fourth when Mitchell hit another 3-pointer to start a 7-0 run that made it 99-83 with about four minutes remaining. Jaylin Williams<\/a> capped that scoring spurt with a two-handed dunk and Houston coach Ime Udoka called a timeout as many fans began streaming toward the exits.<\/p>\n

Udoka was given a technical foul for barking at officials during the timeout and the Thunder continued their run after it, extending it to 14-0. Gilgeous-Alexander made the technical free throw before adding three more in the next couple of minutes and a 3 by Kenrich Williams<\/a> made it 106-83 with 2 minutes left.<\/p>\n

By the time Reed Sheppard<\/a> made a 3-pointer a few seconds after that, the Rockets had gone more than five minutes without scoring.<\/p>\n

It’s the second meeting between these teams this season after Oklahoma City got a 125-124 double-overtime victory in the season opener for both teams.<\/p>\n

The Rockets outrebounded Oklahoma City 60-44, but were done in by their poor shooting. They shot just 33.7% to 46.1% by the Thunder and Oklahoma City made 16 of 41 3-pointers.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Thunder: Visit Miami on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Rockets: Host Minnesota on Friday night.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

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

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON — – Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 20 points, Chet Holmgren added 18 and the Oklahoma City Thunder pulled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[196870,352,5050,355,6402,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-410126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-196870","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-houston-rockets","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410126","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=410126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}