The Houston Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers played a tight game 1 in their western conference playoffs series and the standings has Portland up 1-0 after winning in overtime after James Harden missed the final shot at the Toyota Center and now the teams will be ready to battle it out in game 2 after this game was on TNT on Sunday night.
Portland took the lead with 43 seconds left after the foul on Lillard and the shot her made and that came after Jeremy Lin put the Rockets ahead and the teams went back and forth with runs early in the overtime period. The Rockets had multiple chances to take the lead and they missed shots and they got two offensive rebounds after getting the ball back and there was another foul call and Francisco Garcia made his first foul shot to tie the game at 119-119 and then missed the second free throw, but on that shot, Dwight Howard was held up and he ended up on the foul line.
Howard made his first shot to give the team a 12-119 lead and he had hit six straight foul shots at that point before missing his second shot. The Trail Blazers got another chance to get the lead in the game with two foul shots down the stretch and they tied the game at 120-120 before Damian Lillard gave the team a one point lead with just 17 seconds left. Howard fouled out of the game late on what the announcers thought was a bad call and the Rockets were down one at that point and it ended up a two point deficit with another chance to tie it up.
The game was tied at 116 with 90 seconds left and then the Trail Blazers missed a shot and that gave the Rockets another chance and they couldn't connect on that either and that was for Harden, but after that, Patrick Beverley drew a huge foul and that gave the Rockets a chance. Beverley has played that physical style all season and it paid off in that situation and it was the sixth foul on LaMarcus Aldridge and he was having a career night with over 40 points, setting the team franchise record. Jeremy Lin added a big shot and he scored nine points in the fourth quarter and OT and hit shots down the stretch to give the team the lead and after that Damian Lillard came back and drew a foul after making a basket with a layup.
The Rockets got 27 points from James Harden and 15 rebounds from Dwight Howard in regulation and six assist from Harden, while LaMarcus Aldridge had 23 points and 17 rebounds in regulation, while Damian Lillard had five assists. In overtime Aldridge hit a three and he had two threes in that point after making only three this season in 15 attempts and after the Rockets scored six to open overtime, Aldridge and Nicolas Batum hit threes and then the team took a lead for the first time since late in the first half and that came with just under three minutes in the game and at that point Jeremy Lin hit a shot to tie the game again.
Check here for the score and standings for the NBA playoffs.
