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SHANGHAI, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- James Harden scored 26 points and dished out 15 assists as the Houston Rockets beat the New Orleans Pelicans 123-117 in the 2016 NBA Global Games held at Mercedes-Benz Arena here on Sunday.
Houston Rockets received warm welcome when they appeared on the court in the city where Rockets legend Yao Ming was born. Such a motivation helped them take early lead in the first period 36-30 and 68-65 after the first half.
Yao Ming, who was sitting alongside men's 110m hurdle Olympic champion Liu Xiang during the match, joined Gary Payton, Dikembe Mutombo in the NBA care demonstration during the halftime break.
The Pelicans managed to fight back in the third quarter, outscored Rockets 30-25 to lead by two points. Nene, who troubled Anthony Davis in the paint, was fouled out in this quarter.
Houston was 112-116 down with 2:36 to go, but they pulled off a 11-1 run to the cheers of Chinese fans to win this year's first NBA Global Games in China.
Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson, who transferred from the Pelicans to the Rockets this summer, respectively contributed 24 and 21 points.
Moore had team-high 25 points for New Orleans. Anthony Davis recovered from his knee injury to add 23 points and Omer Asik had a double-double of 14 points and 14 rebounds.
"We had couples of the chances to win the game at the time. We just need to get to the basket, but we missed couples of open shoots, we ran into each other so those are the kind of things I think you can correct, those are the kind of things happened in the preseason," said Pelicans' head coach Alvin Gentry.
Both teams will move to Beijing for their second pre-season game in China on Oct. 12.
