The Rockets won’t remember Wednesday’s closer-than-expected 122-115 victory (box score) in Atlanta for hot shooting, but it would’ve been much worse without reserve guard Ben McLemore.
It very easily could have been a loss.
Houston hit just 13-of-45 shots (28.9%) from 3-point range as a team, but McLemore had six of those makes on just nine attempts (66.7%). Excluding his performance, the rest of the Rockets hit just 7-of-36 (19.4%) on their 3-pointers.
It was the first game for the Rockets (25-11) after a rare stretch of four consecutive off days, and they appeared quite rusty for the layoff. That was especially the case with superstar guard James Harden, who was unusually inefficient with a 9-of-34 (26.5%) shooting line. And Russell Westbrook wasn’t available to make up for it, since he was sitting out on night one of a back-to-back sequence of games.
But between hot shooting by McLemore and tough defense and rebounding from Clint Capela and P.J. Tucker, the Rockets (25-11) avoided what could have been a bad loss at Atlanta (8-30) to win their third consecutive game and fourth of five overall.
McLemore entered Wednesday’s game on something of a cold stretch, making just 29.5% of his 3-pointers over his prior seven games. But the 26-year-old been a key contributor for the season as a whole and one of the team’s best bench shooters, and Houston rewarded him Tuesday by fully guaranteeing his contract for the 2019-20 season.
Only a day later, the 6-foot-3 guard with a lightning quick release showed it was a very worthwhile investment by the team.
With three consecutive wins overall, the Rockets (25-11) and McLemore will look to build on their success in Thursday’s nationally televised game at Oklahoma City. Tip-off is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Central.
