{"id":479238,"date":"2026-02-20T04:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T04:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/479238\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T04:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T04:50:09","slug":"with-35-points-kevin-durant-burns-hornets-as-rockets-improve-to-34-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/479238\/","title":{"rendered":"With 35 points, Kevin Durant burns Hornets as Rockets improve to 34-20"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his first game after an alleged social media \u201cburner\u201d<\/a> controversy, Kevin Durant made quite a statement in Houston\u2019s 105-101 victory (box score<\/a>) at Charlotte.<\/p>\n

With Thursday\u2019s victory, the Rockets (34-20) remain at No. 4 in the Western Conference standings<\/a>, and they are only a half-game back of Denver (35-20) for the No. 3 spot. The Hornets (26-30) are at No. 9 in the East.<\/p>\n

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Durant finished with 35 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 blocks while making 14-of-20 shots (70.0%) and 2-of-4 from 3-point range (50.0%). The perennial All-Star also made all five of his free throws, including a pair of makes in the final seconds to ice the game.<\/p>\n

Other key individual statistics included:<\/p>\n

Jabari Smith Jr.: 15 points, 7 rebounds; 6-of-9 shooting, 2-of-3 on 3-pointers (both 66.7%)<\/p>\n

Alperen Sengun: 13 points, 7 assists, 3 steals; 6-of-16 shooting (37.5%)<\/p>\n

Reed Sheppard: 13 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks; 5-of-12 shooting (41.7%)<\/p>\n

Grant Williams (Hornets): 20 points, 9 rebounds; 7-of-10 shooting (70.0%), 4-of-5 on 3-pointers (80.0%)<\/p>\n

Led by strong defense from the likes of Amen Thompson and Tari Eason, Houston limited Hornets guards Brandon Miller and LaMelo Ball to a combined 10-of-36 shooting (27.8%), including just 2-of-18 from 3-point range (11.1%).<\/p>\n

Collectively, the Rockets had 23 steals and blocks (or \u201cstocks\u201d), while Charlotte had only 10 as a team.<\/p>\n

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To close out a two-game road trip, Houston\u2019s next game is a nationally televised showdown at New York\u2019s Madison Square Garden. Saturday\u2019s tipoff between the Rockets and Knicks (35-20) is at 7:30 p.m. Central, and the game will be broadcast to a national audience on ABC.<\/p>\n

More: Kevin Durant on X burner allegations: \u2018Not here to get into nonsense\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Rockets Wire: With 35 points, Kevin Durant burns Hornets as Rockets improve to 34-20<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his first game after an alleged social media \u201cburner\u201d controversy, Kevin Durant made quite a statement in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[40367,47943,74193,1840,13338,22488,7095,5556,25179,355,4391,60525,6425,99,47944,221406,173108,17814],"class_list":{"0":"post-479238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-alperen-sengun","9":"tag-amen-thompson","10":"tag-brandon-miller","11":"tag-denver","12":"tag-grant-williams","13":"tag-hornets","14":"tag-houston","15":"tag-kevin-durant","16":"tag-lamelo-ball","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-points","19":"tag-reed-sheppard","20":"tag-rockets","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-tari-eason","23":"tag-the-hornets","24":"tag-the-rockets","25":"tag-western-conference"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479238","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=479238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}