ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Kevin Durant scored 22 points and both Reed Sheppard and Tari Eason had 19 points as the Houston Rockets beat the Atlanta Hawks 121-114.<\/p>\n
The Hawks nearly pulled off a comeback by cutting Houston\u2019s 20-point lead down to five in the closing moments, but Durant knocked down two three throws with 18.9 seconds remaining to push the lead back to three possessions.<\/p>\n
The win gave Houston its first 3-0 start since 2017-18, and spoiled Atlanta’s home opener after the Hawks won their first two games of the season on the road.<\/p>\n
Seven Rockets scored in double figures. Amen Thompson posted his third consecutive double-double with 17 points and 11 rebounds, and Alperen Sengun had one of his own with 17 points and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n
Jalen Johnson sored 26 points and tied his career-high with 16 assists for the Hawks.<\/p>\n
The Rockets, who led the NBA in offensive rebounds last season, continued leaning on it as a strength with 13 offensive rebounds leading to 22 second chance points. Sheppard, a 3-point sharpshooter who shot 43% from beyond the arc last year, shook off a 1 of 6 start to his season with a 5 of 11 performance.<\/p>\n
The Hawks on the other hand were a dismal 12 of 45 from 3-point range for the night and 5 of 22 in the first half.<\/p>\n
Atlanta’s Nickeil Alexander-Walker scored 18 points, and Aaron Wiggins made a strong impression in his first home game with the franchise after coming over from Oklahoma City in a summer trade, scoring 16 points off the bench.<\/p>\n
The Rockets and Hawks will play the second half of their home-and-home Monday in Houston.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Kevin Durant scored 22 points and both Reed Sheppard and Tari Eason had 19 points…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[1289,1307,883,676,208,3874,7,677,292,2990,938,6,379,29499,29496,29494,62644,29498,86427,62649,1081,101760,873,90859],"class_list":["post-867352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atlanta-hawks","tag-aaron-wiggins","tag-alperen-sengun","tag-amen-thompson","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-atlantahawks","tag-basketball","tag-hawks","tag-houston","tag-jalen-johnson","tag-kevin-durant","tag-nba","tag-nickeil-alexander-walker","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32547-ap-online-basketball-game-stories","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40781-ap-georgia-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-reed-sheppard","tag-rockets-hawks-score","tag-tari-eason","tag-tsn-rockets"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}