Rockets thrash Kings and earn playoff spot

Updated, 4/13/2016 -- 11:16 p.m.
Posted: April 13, 2016 -- 10:48 pm CDT.

HOUSTON, TX (Toyota Center) -- The Houston Rockets did what they needed to do to earn a spot in the 2015-'16 NBA Playoffs: they defeated the Sacramento Kings. The Rockets thrashed the Kings 116-81 to clinch the 8th and final spot in the Western Conference playoffs. The Rockets' win earns them a first-round match-up versus the top-seed Golden State Warriors (the defending NBA-champs).

Games 1 and 2 of the first round match-up are at Golden State. Date and time have not yet been determined.

"Yeah, I’m excited. I can’t wait (to play the Warriors). "Injuries kind of down played our team last year; but, we were still fortunate to get to the western conference finals and face Golden State. We understand it won’t be easy. We understand that they are potentially one of the best teams ever to play the game of basketball. So, we’re fortunate and blessed to be in the position to play them (in the) first round and we’re excited and it’s going to be fun."

"It’s a continuation of our season; it’s time to get busy," JB Bickerstaff said after the game. "We would have sat here at the beginning of the year thinking that playoffs wouldn’t have been this big of a struggle, so we had expectations of making the playoffs. So, now we have to go get busy."

The Rockets jumped on the Kings early and led 6-0. Kings' head coach (for a few more hours), George Karl, called timeout; but, the timeout did no good. The Rockets raced to a 21-8 lead and led 34-18 at the end of the first quarter.

The Kings' active roster was an ode to unknown basketball players.

This is an actual #NBA active roster tonight...

A photo posted by KG (@houstonroundballreview) on Apr 13, 2016 at 5:28pm PDT

The Rockets took advantage of the lesser known and less talented Kings throughout the ball game.

The Rockets (41-41) led 64-44 at halftime and stretched the lead to 31 points in the third quarter before expanding the lead to 38 in the final stanza.

James Harden scored a game-high 38 points which increased his season average to 29.0 points per game which is the second-highest scoring average in Rockets' franchise history. Moses Malone averaged 31.1 ppg in the 1981-'82 season.

Harden also averaged career-highs of 7.5 assists per game and 6.1 rebounds per game. Harden is just the fourth player in NBA history to average at least 29.0 ppg, 7.0 apg, and 6 rpg in a single game (LeBron James twice, Michael Jordan once and Oscar Robertson seven times). Harden is also just the fourth different player to average at least 27.0 ppg, 7.0 apg, and 5 rpg in multiple seasons (John Havlicek two times; LeBron four times and the Big O eight times).

"Yeah. Those are hall of famers, all of those guys," said Harden. "It’s great company to be with those guys. Credit my teammates for helping me get that. They did a really good job of getting off the ball and getting me into the position to where I can score the basketball."

Patrick Beverley finished the game with a career-high 12 assists and a career-high 6 steals.

Clint Capela grabbed a career-high 17 rebounds.

The Rockets won their final three games of the regular season to finish the season 41-41 to give them 10 consecutive seasons of a record of .500 or better joining the Dallas Mavericks and the San Antonio Spurs as the only teams to accomplish that feat over that stretch.

"That was it: either we wanted to make the playoffs or go home," Harden concluded. "We needed some big wins and guys got those. And tonight we played really well even though the Sacramento Kings were shorthanded, we just went out there and took care of business. It’s about us from here on out, we can control our own destiny. So that was our thought process."

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