Rockets Take Advantage Of LeBron James-Less Cavaliers

By Kenneth Teape | Mar 30, 2016

Mar 29, 2016; Cleveland, OH, USA; Houston Rockets guard James Harden (13) shoots over Cleveland Cavaliers guard Iman Shumpert (4) during the first quarter at Quicken Loans Arena. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports /

The Houston Rockets made the most of their game against the Cleveland Cavaliers with LeBron James sitting out, picking up an important victory.

The Houston Rockets were clinging to the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference heading into Tuesday. They were tied with the Dallas Mavericks with identical 36-38 records, holding the spot only because of tiebreakers.

In a race that is as close as this one, sometimes you need a little luck to push you ahead and that is exactly what the Rockets received Tuesday night.

The Rockets paid their sole visit of the season to Ohio to face off with the Cleveland Cavaliers Tuesday night. Not only were they motivated to win because their playoff lives are hanging in the balance, but they wanted to avenge a loss from earlier in the season; the Cavaliers blew the Rockets out of the Toyota Center in January, 91-77.

On that night the Cavaliers’ Big Three had strong games, as Kyrie Irving led the way scoring wise with 23, Kevin Love had the most rebounds on the night with 13 and LeBron James paced everyone with seven assists. In Cleveland they are even more dominant of a trio, as the Cavaliers were an impressive 30-6 at Quicken Loans Arena.

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But, the Rockets caught a huge break on their visit as James sat out the game.

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Head coach Tyronn Lue decided this was a good time to rest James with the Cavaliers set to play a back-to-back set starting Thursday. That was a relief for the Rockets as James was coming into this matchup with some momentum.

He recorded a triple-double against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, and prior to that, he had led the Cavaliers in scoring for five consecutive games. One of those nights included another triple-double against the Denver Nuggets as well, as he looks to be turning things up for the postseason push.

The Rockets took the gift being handed to them by the Cavaliers and were able to make the most of it. The Rockets beat the Cavaliers 106-100 to push their record to 37-38 on the season, moving a half-game ahead of the Mavericks.

It was not an easy victory for the Rockets, as they had to rally in the fourth quarter to avoid what would have been an extremely disappointing loss given the circumstances.

The Rockets were down by as many as 20 points, but were once again led by James Harden to victory. Harden scored a team-high 27 points, 18 of which came in the fourth quarter when the Rockets outscored the Cavaliers 35-16. That made up for an awful second quarter for the Rockets, when they were outscored 35-14 by the Cavaliers.

While Harden led the way for the Rockets scoring, he got some help as four other teammates, Dwight Howard, Trevor Ariza, Patrick Beverley and Michael Beasley off the bench, all reached double-digits. Howard recorded a double-double in the process, adding 11 rebounds to his 11 points.

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This was a huge win for the Rockets, who snapped a four-game road losing streak in the process as well. You have to take advantage when an opporutnity presents itself and that is exactly what the Rockets did; it may not have been pretty but they picked up the victory and at the end of the day that is all that matters.

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