Oklahoma City Thunder at Houston Rockets

Harden scores 31 points, Rockets beat Thunder for 3-2 lead

Dennis Schroder left.

That was a fortunate turn of events for the Houston Rockets.

James Harden scored 31 points, and Westbrook came back from an injury to face his former team in the playoffs for the first time, helping the Rockets beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 114-80 on Saturday night for a 3-2 lead in the first-round playoff series.

"We've missed him the first four games. Now we've got him, and let's see what we can do," Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni said. "I knew he was going to be a little rusty, but he gave us a nice little spark."

"He brought that energy. He brought that excitement we were missing," Harden said. "We need him."

"It was kind of a bang-bang play," Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. "I understand, with P.J. getting thrown out, maybe it felt like Dennis needed to get thrown out. But again, it was an illegal screen. I'm not even going to speculate or even know (how) to read Dennis' mind."

Robert Covington had 20 of his 22 points in the second half, and Eric Gordon had 20 in all for the Rockets, who can advance to the conference semifinals for the fourth straight year with a victory in Game 6 on Monday.

Steven Adams had 12 points and 14 rebounds, and Darius Bazley had 10 points and 12 rebounds for the Thunder. They trailed by three at halftime before giving up 19 of the first 21 points of the third.

Y'ER OUT

Midway through the third quarter with Houston leading 67-49, Tucker set a pick on Schroder, who swung his right arm between Tucker's legs. When the two players stood back up, Tucker approached Schroder and head-butted him from behind.

After checking the video, referee James Capers called a Flagrant 2 foul on Schroder and ejected him. Tucker was given a technical foul with an ejection.

"As Schroder attempted to get through the screen, (he) delivers an unnecessary and excessive act in the groin of Tucker. Tucker gets up and head-butts Schroder," Capers told a pool reporter. "It was unnecessary and excessive and by rule that is the definition of a Flagrant Penalty 2."

OFF THE COURT

The teams had been scheduled to play the game on Wednesday before the league suspended all games in the wake of the Milwaukee Bucks' decision not to play as a racial justice protest.

As president of the players' association, Thunder guard Chris Paul was one of the busier people during the walkout. He finished with 16 points and three assists, going 1 for 5 from 3-point range while Oklahoma City made 7 of 46 as a team.

"No excuses," Paul said. "It's been an emotional couple days for everyone on our team as well as their team.

"To be honest with you, it was nice to get out and play some," he said. "But as soon as the game is over, it's back to the work."

TIP-INS

UP NEXT

Game 6 is Monday.

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Regular Season Series

OKC wins series 2-1