Houston Rockets: Top 10 moments from 2017-18 NBA season

4. The third quarter explosion against the Minnesota Timberwolves

In spite of failing to convert a bevy of clean looks throughout the first half, the Houston Rockets would only need just 12 minutes of basketball to regain total control of their first round series in the 2018 NBA Playoffs.

James Harden scored 22 of the team’s franchise-record 50 points in the third quarter to help propel the Rockets to a 119-100 win against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 4 of the Western Conference quarterfinals.

"“We had the mentality to be aggressive, make or missed shots,” Harden told reporters following his 36-point outburst in the contest. “That’s what we do. We shoot the basketball, and eventually they’ll start falling.”"

Houston, which held a narrow one-point lead going into halftime, matched its exact first half total in the period. Shooting a scorching 61 percent from the field, the Rockets fell just one point shy of tying the 1962 Los Angeles Lakers atop the NBA playoff record books for the most points ever scored in a single quarter.

Although it took Houston’s offense nearly 14 quarters to rattle off its finest performance of the postseason, it could not have come at a better time, as the Rockets shot 69 percent from 3-point land in the period to silence a loud Target Center crowd.

Extending a one-point lead all the way to 31 points by the end of the quarter, Clutch City managed to douse all the hopes of Minnesota at one of the most critical moments in their season.