The Rockets had their meeting and talked through all that had apparently been unsaid in the previous gatherings, but Pat Beverley had a point to make when the doors were opened.
He said he felt sorry for the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Rockets’ next opponent, and when he dared them to do something about it, he seemed to be challenging not the team of young talent heading to Toyota Center, but the Rockets and himself.
Beverley had offered trash talk his idol, Wolves legend Kevin Garnett, could appreciate. Though the Rockets did not work out all of their issues, they backed up their point guard’s promise, holding off the Timberwolves 116-111 to at least end the pain from Wednesday’s loss to the Clippers.
Beverley was not all talk, getting a season-high 18 points with a career-high 10 assists. He had plenty of help, from James Harden matching his career high with 14 assists to Donatas Motiejunas scoring 17 points in 26 minutes as the Rockets rolled through their best shooting game (56.5 percent) of the season. But the tone was set a day before.
“He’s a spark plug,” Rockets interim coach JB Bickerstaff said of Beverley. “He’s the fire starter. He makes those plays that kind of make the hair on your neck stand up a little bit, make you pucker a little bit and get into it a little bit more. Guys feed off that. They feed off his energy.
“They feed off his fight. He’s starting a little mess, they feed off that. They all fight a little more.”
Rare occurrence
The Rockets started fast, led by 13 and for just the second time in 19 games, took a lead into the second quarter.
“We felt the heat from the coaching staff, we felt the heat from ourselves,” Beverley said. “We wanted to come out and have a good start and we did.”
They left plenty of work to be done. Even with the slow start, the Timberwolves made 50.6 percent of their shots with Karl-Anthony Towns scoring 32 points. But the Rockets set a tone and did not spend the game playing from behind.
Ride the fast start
“That was important, that was one of the keys to the game, come out with a really good start and ride that wave out the rest of the game,” Harden said. “They made a run. Our job is to continue to do the right things and get a win.”
The Rockets began the game moving the ball and shared it throughout. Their 31 assists were one shy of the season high. Harden and Beverley were the first Rockets teammates to be in double figures for assists in the same game since Harden and Jeremy Lin in November 2012. Every starter and Michael Beasley scored in double figures.
The Rockets covered nearly every line of their team meeting checklist, until the defense could not put the game away in the fourth quarter when the Wolves made 66.7 percent of their shots.
When the Timberwolves were hanging around within six with 2 1/2  minutes left, the Rockets went back to doing what they had throughout the game. They shared the ball and got good shots. And they did it with their power forwards, as Bickerstaff sat Dwight Howard for the final seven minutes to avoid intentional fouls and rely on his big man reinforcements.
Motiejunas put in a Beasley miss and then stripped Andrew Wiggins to start a break Beasley finished. When Harden set up Beasley inside and put in a step-back jumper, the Rockets led by eight in the last minute, enough to withstand a flurry of 3s.
Follow their leader
They also lived up to their point guard’s promise enough to look forward to the next team meeting and the proclamations that come out of it.
“He doesn’t do a lot of talking that he’s not willing to back up,” Bickerstaff said. “He doesn’t do it all the time.