Harden fuels Rockets charge to 8th in row

LOS ANGELES – The Houston Rockets, fueled by 29 points from James Harden, posted their eighth straight NBA victory on Thursday, 112-101 over the Utah Jazz.

Ryan Anderson scored 23 points and Chris Paul added 18 points, 13 assists and nine rebounds for Houston, the Western Conference leaders who have now won 14 of their last 15 games.

The Jazz coughed up eight turnovers in the first half, leading to 13 points for the Rockets.

Nevertheless, the Jazz twice managed to take the lead in the first half – but both times the Rockets powered back in front.

Houston pulled away in the second half, building a 74-53 lead early in the third with a 13-2 run that included Clint Capela’s three-point play and a dunk. The Rockets led by as many as 25 in the second half en route to the victory.

Paul would have preferred it if the margin hadn’t dwindled.

“We just started giving up wide open threes down the stretch,” he said. “We know we’ve got to be better, but we’ll take the win.”

In Philadelphia, Brandon Ingram drained a three-pointer with eight-tenths of a second remaining to lift the Los Angeles Lakers to a 107-104 victory over the 76ers.

Ingram led the Lakers with 21 points. Julius Randle and Jordan Clarkson added 16 each off the bench for Los Angeles, who snapped a five-game losing streak in front of a raucous Philadelphia crowd.

Caris LeVert scored 21 points with 10 assists as the Brooklyn Nets erased a 16-point deficit en route to a 100-95 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Mexico City.

The game was the first of two in Mexico City for the Nets, who will face the Miami Heat in the Ciudad de Mexico.

LeVert, playing on the first anniversary of his NBA debut, connected on six of 10 shots and was effective in guarding Thunder star Russell Westbrook, who scored 31 points but made just 10 of his 27 shots from the floor.

Westbrook scored only five points in the fourth quarter and was harried by LeVert into a turnover with 2:11 to play.

The Thunder missed three straight shots in the space of seven seconds, and LeVert sealed the Nets fourth win in six games with four free-throws in the final 19 seconds.

In Phoenix, Wizards guard Bradley Beal followed up his 51-point outburst in Portland with 34 points in Washington’s 109-99 victory over the Suns.

Beal continued to pick up the offensive slack as Wizards point guard John Wall missed his seventh straight game with knee trouble.

“I took advantage of what they gave me,” Beal said.