LOS ANGELES—The Houston Rockets shot down streaking Golden State on Thursday, ending the Warriors’ 12-game NBA winning streak with a 132-127 double-overtime triumph.
Rockets guard James Harden posted his fourth triple-double of the season, scoring 29 points with 15 rebounds and 13 assists.
Harden connected on a three-pointer to put the Rockets up 126-123 with 3:12 remaining in the second overtime and added two free throws with 2:10 left.
Eric Gordon stretched the lead with a jump shot and the Warriors couldn’t find an answer after losing Stephen Curry less than two minutes into the second extra session when the NBA Most Valuable Player fouled out having scored 28 points.
The last time Curry fouled out of a game was on December 13, 2013—the last time the Rockets beat the Warriors.
Kevin Durant tied a season-high with 39 points and Draymond Green just missed a triple-double with 20 points, 15 rebounds and nine assists for the Warriors, who fell to 16-3—still the best record in the league.
The battle of two of the league’s best three-point shooting teams saw a whopping 88 three-pointers attempted.
The Rockets finished 14 of 44 from behind the arc, while the Warriors made 12 of their 44.
It was a frantic race to the end of regulation, in which Durant tied the game at 113-113 with two free throws with 19 seconds left.
Golden State nosed ahead in the first extra session, but Curry then missed two three-pointers and Houston’s Gordon tied it with 1:25 remaining with a three-pointer of his own.
Sam Dekker then put Houston up with 45.4 seconds left before Golden State’s Klay Thompson tied it again with a short jump shot with 27.4 seconds left.
That set the stage for the second overtime, in which the Rockets out-scored the Warriors 9-4.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Clippers snapped a three-game NBA skid in impressive style Thursday, humbling the reigning champion Cavaliers 113-94 in Cleveland.
LeBron James and the Cavaliers endured their second straight defeat on the heels of an upset loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday.
It’s the first time this season the 13-4 Cavaliers have lost two straight.
“Those guys did a good job —they played desperate basketball, with them losing the last three,” James said of the Clippers. “They played some good ball. We’ve got to figure it out, which we will.”
The Clippers held an eight-point lead over the lackluster champs at halftime, and opened the third quarter with a 13-2 scoring run to seize control.
JJ Redick scored 23 points, Chris Paul scored 16 and Blake Griffin scored 13 and matched his career high with 11 assists for the Clippers, who were coming off an embarrassing double-overtime loss in Brooklyn.
DeAndre Jordan pulled down 15 rebounds and the Clippers as a team passed for a season-high 33 assists.
“I thought it was a team win because I thought every single guy had a contribution,” said Clippers coach Doc Rivers, who blasted his team’s complacency in the loss to the Nets.
That was never going to happen against the Cavaliers, he added.
“The reason was we respected them,” he said. “They’re the Cleveland Cavaliers. They get your attention.”
But the Cavaliers never really fired.
“It was a weird game,” James said. “Especially in that first half, the second quarter the whistle was blowing so much we couldn’t get in a rhythm. The game just kind of unravelled, we got in foul trouble … they just broke our rhythm.”
After that unsettling opening half, the Cavs started the second half with three successive turnovers, followed by missed shots on their next five possessions.
They didn’t score their first basket of the second half until almost four minutes into the third quarter, when the Clippers were up by 16.
Kyrie Irving scored 28 points and James added 16 for the Cavs, but Cleveland were held to 40.6 percent shooting and made 18 turnovers leading to 21 Clippers points while producing just 12 assists as a team.
“We played the right way,” Clippers point guard Paul said. “It was important for us to see what it felt like to win a game.
“When you’re running off (wins) like we were and then you lose three in a row, you need to get that feeling back just to get our locker room back right.”