Harden's 40 lifts Rockets over Raptors

Houston Rockets guard James Harden scored a game-high 40 points and added 14 assists to lead Rockets to a 113-107 victory over Toronto Raptors on Sunday.

Trailing by as many as 18 points in the first half and 15 points with 4:50 remaining in the third quarter, Harden dished out his tenth 40-plus point performance of the season and 25th of his career to mount the comeback.

"I'm just trying to do whatever it takes to win games," said Harden after the win. "That's my mindset, give it all out, don't hold anything back."

Despite picking up his fourth foul early in the third quarter, Harden didn't allow a foul in the rest of the game and ended up playing the second half to score 30 points.

"It was important for him to be on the floor. We knew the situation in the game. He's intelligent enough defensively to keep himself in the right positions early," said Rockets interim head coach J. B. Bickerstaff.

Harden played a game-high 43 minutes, five minutes more than his season average of 37.7 minutes per game, second only to Chicago forward Jimmy Butler's 37.8 minutes per game.

"It's the second time in the last two weeks where he played the entirety of the second half and still be able to do what he did on both ends of the floor," Bickerstaff said. "You're blessed to have a guy like that on your team."

Since taking over the coaching duties from Kevin McHale in November, Bickerstaff has coached the team to a 27-25 record and secured a playoff spot.

"This is a great win for us, but it's not the finale," said Bickerstaff. "We got to turn the corner and use this to propel us to something special."

Houston currently sit in the eighth place in the Western Conference with a 31-32 record, two games behind the sixth place Dallas Mavericks with 19 games remaining for the season. Endit