{"id":412497,"date":"2026-01-17T07:40:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T07:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/412497\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T07:40:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T07:40:07","slug":"kevin-durants-season-high-39-points-and-clutch-free-throws-lift-rockets-over-timberwolves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/412497\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant’s season-high 39 points and clutch free throws lift Rockets over Timberwolves"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON — – Kevin Durant<\/a> scored 39 points and made a season-best six 3-pointers to lead the Houston Rockets<\/a> to a 110-105 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> Friday night.<\/p>\n

Alperen Sengun<\/a> added 25 points with 14 rebounds to help the Rockets bounce back after a blowout loss to Oklahoma City Thursday night.<\/p>\n

A 6-2 run by the Timberwolves, with four points from Julius Randle<\/a>, got them within 105-102 with about 90 seconds to go. Sengun fouled out soon after that and Jaden McDaniels<\/a> made one of two free throws to get Minnesota within two points.<\/p>\n

Durant made two free throws with under a minute left before Randle turned the ball over and Durant was fouled again. He made two more free throws with 22.1 seconds left to seal the victory.<\/p>\n

Durant’s big shooting night came after he was 0 for 5 on 3-pointers against the Thunder.<\/p>\n

Randle had season-high 39 points for the Timberwolves on a night when Anthony Edwards<\/a> missed a second straight game with a foot issue.<\/p>\n

The Timberwolves trailed by six points after a basket by Bones Hyland<\/a> before Rudy Gobert<\/a> missed a chance to close the gap by missing three of his next four free throws. Houston remained up by 5 later in the fourth, but a dunk by Sengun extended the lead to 103-96 with 3 minutes left.<\/p>\n

Neither team shot well from the free throw line, with Houston making just 20 of 34 and Minnesota going 20 for 35. Gobert had the worst night, going 2 for 10 on free throws.<\/p>\n

Naz Reid<\/a> added 25 points with 10 rebounds off the bench for the Timberwolves, who scored at least 100 points in their 100th straight game, which is the third-longest such streak in NBA history.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Timberwolves: Visit San Antonio on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Rockets: Host New Orleans on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

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

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON — – Kevin Durant scored 39 points and made a season-best six 3-pointers to lead the Houston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[197908,352,5050,11951,355,99],"class_list":["post-412497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-197908","tag-espn","tag-houston-rockets","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412497","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=412497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}