PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Kevin Durant scored 24 points in his return to Phoenix and the Houston Rockets rallied from an early 21-point deficit and pulled away late to beat the Phoenix Suns 119-105 on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
The Rockets are on a seven-game winning streak and moved into a tie with the Los Angeles Lakers for the No. 4 spot in the Western Conference playoff race.<\/p>\n
All five Houston starters scored in double figures. Durant made 5 of 9 3-pointers.<\/p>\n
Durant, a 16-time All-Star, was greeted with a mix of boos and cheers by Suns fans when he was announced as part of the Rockets’ starting lineup. He was traded to the Rockets during the offseason after spending 2 1\/2 seasons in the desert in a package that brought Dillon Brooks and Jalen Green to the Suns.<\/p>\n
The Suns jumped out to a 26-5 lead midway through the first quarter, hitting 10 of their first 15 shots, but the Rockets cut the deficit to 57-54 by halftime. Houston led early in the third quarter but Phoenix rallied to take an 84-81 into the fourth.<\/p>\n
Houston scored the first eight points of the fourth quarter to push back into the lead and didn\u2019t trail again. Durant hit a 3-pointer to put Rockets up 111-96 with 4:14 left.<\/p>\n
Devin Booker scored 31 points for the Suns. The Rockets finished with a 55-34 rebounding edge.<\/p>\n
Durant came to the Suns in 2023 as part of a four-team trade deadline deal just hours after Mat Ishbia officially took the reins of the franchise as a majority owner. The splashy move was widely praised at the time, but the Suns were never able to advance past the second round of the playoffs during his tenure.<\/p>\n
Rockets: Host the 76ers on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Suns: Host the Mavericks on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Kevin Durant scored 24 points in his return to Phoenix and the Houston Rockets rallied…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[36057,6416,6412,5556,355,74976,18740,74973,251790,251791,251789,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-571337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-devin-booker","9":"tag-dillon-brooks","10":"tag-jalen-green","11":"tag-kevin-durant","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","14":"tag-phoenix","15":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","16":"tag-product-40774-ap-arizona-sports-only","17":"tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","18":"tag-rockets-suns-score","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571337","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=571337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}