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Durant leads Thunder to rare win in Houston

Jan 13, 2011 - 7:46 AM Houston, TX (Sports Network) - Kevin Durant finished with 30 points, and the Oklahoma City Thunder held off a late Rockets surge, topping Houston, 118-112, at Toyota Center.

Russell Westbrook notched a double-double with 23 points and 13 assists, while both Serge Ibaka and Jeff Green added 16 points for the Thunder, who had not won in Houston since February 22 2005, when they were still the Seattle SuperSonics.

"It was a good win for us," Thunder coach Scott Brooks said."[Houston] is a banged up team and have had some injuries all year, yet they continue to fight."

Luis Scola finished with a game-high 31 points to go along with 11 rebounds for Houston. Courtney Lee added 19 points in a reserve role and Kyle Lowry added 18 points and four assists in the loss.

The Rockets have dropped six of seven overall.

Houston tied the game on a Patrick Patterson jump-shot at the 9:12 mark of the fourth to tie the game at 90. After the Thunder missed their next three shots, Nick Collison dropped a short basket at 8:18 to begin a 17-4 Oklahoma City run -- capped by a Durant slam -- to take a 107-94 lead.

Westbrook's pullup bank-shot with 2:13 remaining had the Thunder up 109-96. The lead was quickly squashed, as Aaron Brooks connected on a driving layup, and long three to begin a 12-1 run that stretched into the final minute of play.

After Lee capped the run with a driving jump shot the Rockets called a quick timeout. Forced to foul, Houston sent Westbrook to the line with 17.1 seconds remaining, he made both.

Brooks' driving layup with 13 ticks remaining put the game at 112-110, but Houston sent Westbrook to the line for another pair, he again connected on both. The teams duplicated this process one more time as Brook's driving finger roll with 8.8 seconds remaining was negated with a pair of James Harden free throws.

Brooks attempted to end the monotony and cut the deficit to one, but his long three-pointer with 3.9 seconds remaining was off target, and Harden proceeded to ice two final shots from the charity stripe to account for the final margin.

"We put ourselves in a position to win tonight, but we fell flat with jump shots," Aaron Brooks said. "The good thing was we were getting the shots, we just didn't hit them towards the end."

The Thunder made 11-of-12 from the line in the fourth quarter.

"Total team effort, especially in the second half," Scott Brooks continued. "We played smart team basketball."

After a back-and-forth first quarter the game was 31-all. The Rockets shot 36.4 percent from the field in the second quarter, and took a 54-52 lead at the half.

Scola connected on 7-of-10 from the field in the third quarter, but the Thunder used a balanced attack to take a 82-79 lead into the final stanza.

Game Notes

Oklahoma City shot 78.8 percent from the charity stripe, Westbrook went 9- of-12 from the line...Thabo Sefolosha ended with six points and 13 rebounds for the victors and Nenad Krstic scored 11 points to go along with seven rebounds.