Rockets Beat Jazz for Eighth Straight Victory

It’s beginning to look like Chris Paul was the missing piece of the puzzle for the Houston Rockets. The Rockets picked up the Point guard from the Los Angeles Clippers in the off season in a big multiplayer trade. Paul played in the season opener, a 122-121 victory over the Golden State Warriors, but then missed the team’s next 14 games due to a knee injury. He returned to action on November 16th in the Rockets’ 142-116 drubbing of the Phoenix Suns. On December 7th, Houston beat the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City 112-101. It was the team’s eighth straight win. So Paul has played in nine games for the Rockets, and they’ve won them all. After beating the Jazz, the Rockets (19-4) took a half game lead over the Warriors (20-6) at the top of the NBA Western Conference standings.

Of course, there’s more to the Rockets than just Chris Paul returning to floor. James Harden scored 29 points in the win at Utah, and Ryan Anderson added 23. Harden leads th NBA in scoring average with an impressive 31.6 points per game. He’s also second in the NBA in assists per game with 9.4, although that may drop some with Paul playing again. Paul scored 18 points and had 13 assists in the victory over the Jazz. Houston, Golden State, and the San Antonio Spurs (17-8) are the top teams in the Western Conference here in the early going, with several others not too far back. The upshot of this is that defending champ Golden State has plenty of competition in the stacked NBA West.