The Houston Rockets will look to extend an impressive run through the East when they visit the ailing Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night.
The giant-killing Rockets followed back-to-back victories over the Eastern Conference-leading Cavaliers, the second of those contests in Cleveland, with a thrilling 114-112 takedown of the reigning NBA champion Celtics on Monday in Boston.
Amen Thompson, fresh off his first triple-double of the season on Saturday at Cleveland, scored a career-high 33 points against the Celtics, including the go-ahead bucket with 1.3 seconds remaining. Houston had trailed by 12 points in the fourth quarter.
After throwing down an easy dunk on the Rockets’ previous possession, Thompson collected the final inbound pass with 5.3 seconds remaining, drove aggressively to the rim and hit a floater in the lane over Jaylen Brown.
The second-year wing channeled the legendary Kobe Bryant with his last-second heroics that sealed Houston’s ninth win in 11 outings.
“It felt great, I knew it was in all the way,” Thompson said. “It’s my first game-winner. I feel like Kobe!”
Houston’s Dillon Brooks scored 36 points in the face of a constant chorus of boos from the Boston faithful.
“Dillon the villain” was at his antagonistic best, dancing, taunting and blowing kisses to the crowd, whose taunts only succeeded in raising his level of play.
“It gives me fire,” he said. “It gives me grace to play hard. It fuels my teammates. We play together, we play hard, we believe in each other. It shows every single night we’re the tougher team.”
Brooks’ haul included a franchise-record-tying 10 threes, the most by any Canadian in an NBA game.
“Shoot, I had 10 of them?” he responded in shock after going 10-for-15 from long range. “First shot felt good, then they kept feeding me. I just felt pretty good all day.”
Limiting the Rockets’ gamebreakers will be tall task for the Hawks, who took their fifth consecutive defeat on Monday, falling 100-92 to the Minnesota Timberwolves in Minneapolis.
Atlanta started slowly before battling to the finish, avoiding a blowout despite missing three of its best players through injury.
The Hawks, who were missing NBA assist leader Trae Young (hamstring), Jalen Johnson (shoulder) and Dyson Daniels (ankle), sliced what had been a 17-point deficit down to six in the final minutes before falling short. Atlanta couldn’t overcome 12-of-43 3-point shooting (27.9 percent).
“I thought we had a rocky start,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said. “We knew we were going to compete — that’s how our guys are. I think as the game went on, we played better defensively and found some stuff in transition.
“Gosh, we had some really good looks that, if they go in, maybe there’s a different outcome. I certainly can’t fault the effort. We weren’t perfect, but for the most part, when we did the things we wanted to do, we had some success.”
Atlanta will need players to step up against Houston given the absence of key personnel, which De’Andre Hunter did against the Timberwolves, pouring in a career-best 35 points despite entering the game as questionable because of illness.
“He was aggressive from three,” Snyder said. “With a few of the guys unable to play, the team needed that. He took that on his shoulders.”
