James Harden: It’s ‘disrespectful’ that fan shined light in his eyes

James Harden, and a referee, noticed the distraction-discovered coming from a flash light-and the game between the Houston Rockets and the Utah Jazz abruptly came to a pause in the third quarter. He had to catch himself before he threw the basketball at him first. He scored a career-best 32 points against Memphis one game earlier and is averaging 24.3 points over the last three contests – a stretch in which he has gone 14-of-23 from 3-point range.

The Jazz owned the middle of the game, outscoring the Rockets 56-41 in the second and third quarters and building a 15-point lead, but Houston turned it on late, beginning the fourth quarter on a 12-2 run to take an 81-79 lead.

Despite having a load of stars in the line-up such as James Harden, Dwight Howard and Ty Lawson, there is clearly something missing for the Rockets and they are trying to make things up as they go along. “That’s the first time that happened to me”. I saw it the first time and I thought it was a picture being taken.

“It’s a NBA game, you got fans trying to watch some good basketball games, really talented, blessed basketball players out there on the court and you’re trying to laser them, that’s just insane”, Harden said. Harden would add nine more in the fourth quarter, as the Rockets clamped down on the short-handed and exhausted Jazz to take a two-point lead with just under two minutes remaining.

The unexpected and unwelcome light-shining sparked a stoppage in the game as arena ushers and security searched for the unofficial and unwanted sixth man.

Meanwhile, the Rockets had lost four straight before sneaking past the Jazz in a 93-91 win at Utah on Monday.

For the Utah Jazz they need to believe that the best is yet to come for their franchise, because if they play their cards right this season they could be in the thick of the Western Conference playoffs. The margin got as high as 46 in the second half as the Jazz finished with their lowest point total of the season. “We put ourselves in this position and we got to keep fighting and dig ourselves out of this hole, and it has to happen as soon as possible”.

Jazz: Hood had his first child on Sunday, a son…. Houston coach J.B. Bickerstaff addressed the issue before the game. Unlike those games before, this one went the Rockets way.

This is the first of four total meetings in the campaign for the two teams and given the struggles they have had recently, getting a win over the other should count for something big between the two squads.