By Canadian Press

Trent has 42; Raptors push streak to 8 with win over Rockets

Feb 10, 2022 | 10:17 PM

HOUSTON (AP) — Gary Trent Jr. scored a season-high 42 points, and the Toronto Raptors pushed their season-high winning streak to eight games with a 139-120 victory over the Houston Rockets on Thursday night.

Toronto’s winning streak is the longest active one in the NBA and the loss extends Houston’s skid to four games.

It was Trent’s seventh game with 30 points or more this season and Pascal Siakam added 30 points for his sixth 30-point game of the season. Trent and Siakam both got going early and had 25 and 26 points respectively by halftime as Toronto built a 73-64 lead.

The 42 points were the most for Trent, who made six 3-pointers, since he had a career-high 44 last April against Cleveland.

The Raptors had a 12-point lead to start the fourth and a 9-2 spurt early in the period, with four points from Chris Boucher, pushed their advantage to 114-95 with about 9 minutes to go.

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Houston used a 14-5 run to cut the deficit to 119-109 with about 5 minutes remaining. The Rockets made four 3-pointers in that stretch, with two from Kevin Porter Jr.

Toronto called a timeout, and the Raptors scored the next seven points, highlighted by a steal and three-point play by Trent, to make it 126-109 with 4 minutes to go and Houston didn’t threaten again.

Porter had a season-high 30 points and Garrison Mathews added 19 for the Rockets, who lost for the eighth time in nine games.

The Raptors were up by nine with about 4 1/2 minutes left in the third quarter when Siakam collected his fifth foul and went to the bench. A 3-pointer by Christian Wood got the Rockets within 93-87 soon after that. But an 8-2 spurt by Toronto, with the first four points from Dalano Banton, pushed the lead to 12 with less than a minute left in the third.

Josh Christopher made a 3-pointer for Houston with 10 seconds left in the quarter before Chris Boucher’s 3 at the buzzer left the Raptors up 104-92 entering the fourth.

TIP-INS

Raptors: Fred VanVleet sat out with left groin soreness. … Boucher had 16 points off the bench. … Toronto made 15 of 39 3-pointers.

Rockets: Eric Gordon missed his third straight game with a foot injury. … Jalen Green, the second overall pick in the draft, had 18 points. … Wood had 17 points and 11 rebounds. … The Rockets had 21 turnovers.

UP NEXT

Raptors: Host Denver Saturday night.

Rockets: Play the first of four straight road games at Utah Monday night.

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More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Kristie Rieken, The Associated Press