HOUSTON - The Rockets didn’t need one giant scoring night from Kevin Durant to beat the Warriors on Wednesday. They needed a crowd.
Houston rolled out a lineup of contributors in a 115-108 win over Golden State, with six players finishing in double figures. Durant paced the group with 20 points, while Amen Thompson and Alperen Sengun added 19 apiece. Fred VanVleet scored 18, Jabari Smith Jr. finished with 14, and Reed Sheppard gave the Rockets 13 off the bench.
That kind of spread-out production has become a calling card for Houston early this season. Wednesday marked the fifth time the Rockets have had at least six players reach double figures, and they’ve now had at least five do it in 11 of 12 games. That ties Atlanta and Cleveland for the most such games in the league.
“It means we're sharing the ball, sometimes reluctantly, but we're sharing the ball,” VanVleet said. “The ball was moving. We kind of understand how the Warriors were going to play defensively, and it was key for us to be able to spread it out and share the sugar a little bit.”
Durant said the scoring balance makes Houston a much tougher puzzle for defenses to solve.
“You don't know whose day it is sometimes as a defense,” Durant said before reading off individual point totals from Wednesday’s game. “20, 14, 19, 19, 18, 13. When you get hit with waves like that, you don't know.”
Durant is the Rockets’ second-leading scorer at 20.9 points per game, just behind Sengun’s 21.1. Smith, VanVleet, Thompson and Sheppard are all averaging at least 10 points, and Tari Eason is close behind at 9.3.
For Durant, that depth changes the way opponents have to game-plan.
“Sometimes you might have to double with somebody else tonight,” he said. “You might have to show better, different coverages or different scheme than (for) one guy who's gotten hot all of a sudden.
“When you can have guys come off the bench and get numbers, when you have guys start and get numbers, we got five or six guys in double figures, the next team that's scouting us, they can't just have one thing to stand on, on defense. They got to be able to switch it up throughout the game.”
The numbers back up the feel. Last season, Houston went 20-9 when six players scored in double figures and 37-17 when at least five did.
When fewer than five reached that mark, the Rockets were 15-13. This year, they’re already 8-3 when at least five players hit double digits, a big reason they’ve opened 9-3.
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