James Harden is out of this world and continued to prove it on the court as the Rockets beat the Spurs Friday night, 111-105.
Harden matched his career high, scoring 61 points with 27 of those points coming in the first quarter. Late in the fourth quarter, he knocked down three straight 3's to give Houston the lead followed by four more points on a 13-2 run. Harden now has eight 50+ point performances this season and joins Wilt Chamberlain, Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan as the only players with multiple 60 point games in a season. Out of the nine top scoring games this season, Harden has seven of those and has recorded at least 55 points in consecutive games for the second time this season. Chamberlain is the only other player in the history of the NBA to do the same. Harden finished 9-13 from three, 19-34 from the field and 14-17 from the charity stripe.
Chris Paul scored 18 points and Eric Gordon had 12 points.
The Rockets have now won 13 of their last 15 games and improve to 46-27 on the season. Houston travels to New Orleans to take on the Pelicans Sunday night at 6:00pm CT.