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Jerry Bembry
WASHINGTON — On one hand you had Houston Rockets guard James Harden, who was named the NBA’s MVP last season behind his lethal combination of 3-point shooting and his uncanny ability to get to the rim.
On the other hand you had the Washington Wizards duo of John Wall and Bradley Beal, who have raised eyebrows in previous years when boasting of being the NBA’s best backcourt. The meeting of those three on Monday — along with Rockets guard Eric Gordon, starting in place of the injured Chris Paul — proved to be historic.
Harden scored 54 points and Gordon added 36 — season highs for both players. That combined 90 points is the second most points by a starting backcourt on record.
Despite that scoring outburst it was Washington that escaped with a 135-131 overtime victory behind a season-high 36 points from Wall and a season-high-tying 32 for Beal. With Wall and Beal totaling 68 the two backcourts combined to score 158 points, the most combined points by both teams starting backcourts on record.
“You watched a lot of high level players play at a high level,” Washington coach Scott Brooks said. “Amazing players all had great games.”
It shattered the previous record of 140 points scored by the starting backcourts of the Portland Trail Blazers and the Toronto Raptors on March 4, 2016. Portland’s Damian Lillard‘s had 50 in that game, to go along with CJ McCollum‘s 24 in a 117-115 loss to the Raptors who got 38 from DeMar DeRozan and 28 from Kyle Lowry.
Both the Houston and Washington backcourts scored with great efficiency — Harden and Gordon shot a combined 52.7 percent while Wall and Beal shot 60.9 percent — in a shootout played to the delight of the fans.
The Wizards, for most of the game, could do very little to stop Harden, who was problematic from long-range (hit hit seven of 15 3-pointers) and attacking the rim (which resulted in his hitting 13 of 15 from the free throw line).
Harden scored 31 of his points after halftime, and added 13 assists.
“I tried to be aggressive with Chris out,” Harden said. “At the same time, I tried to get guys involved and get guys in position to score.”
In the two straight starts with Paul out, Gordon has had his two best scoring games of the season. His 36 points (in a season-high 43 minutes) came while hitting 12 of 23 shots from the field, including eight 3-pointers.
The only starting backcourt to score more than the 90 points that Harden and Gordon had on Monday was the duo of Kobe Bryant and Smush Parker in a game on January 22, 2006. Parker had 13 that night against the Raptors while Bryant carried the heavy load, scoring a career-high 81.
On Monday Harden also had a season-high 11 turnovers, three of those coming in overtime when the Rockets scored just six points and appeared to run out of gas in losing their third straight.
But Houston would have never been in the game without Harden’s scoring explosion.
“I study James, so his step back, I have to respect,” said Beal, who defended Harden much of the night. “When I’m one-on-one, I know that’s what he wants. It’s either that or he wants to get a foul. It’s kind of fun (playing against him) cause it challenges me.”
Brooks could only appreciate the show Harden put on.
“We tried everything on Harden,” Brooks said. “We absolutely tried to take it out of his hands early, take it out of it late. Keep our hands out of his shooting pocket. We tried the switch, we tried the show. He was playing at high, high, high level, and his step back threes [were on].”
Harden now has three 50-point games in which his team has lost over the last two seasons. The total number of games lost by the rest of the teams in the NBA with 50 point scorers in that same span: two.