Aaron Brooks made his first eight shots and finished with 22 points, leading the Houston Rockets to a 102-85 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday night.
Brooks was 9 for 11 from the field overall after coming in with a shooting percentage of 43.2, third-highest on the club. The third-year point guard had a season-high 11 field goals on Nov. 15 at Staples Center, when he put up a career-high 23 shots and had his highest scoring game as a pro with 33 points in a win over the Lakers.
Chase Budinger scored 19 points, and Trevor Ariza added 16 for the Rockets, who have won consecutive games for the first time since a three-game stretch that followed a season-opening loss at Portland. Houston outscored Los Angeles 16-3 over the final 6:52 after a layup by Marcus Camby. The Rockets shot 50.7 percent from the field, improving to 5-0 under those circumstances.
Al Thornton had 19 points for the Clippers, who were 0 for 13 from 3-point range before Baron Davis ended the drought with 1.1 seconds to play. By contrast, Houston was 12 for 23 on 3-point shots.
Forward Luis Scola, wearing protective goggles after getting gouged in the right eye by Etan Thomas on Sunday at Oklahoma City and getting seven stitches, played 28 minutes and was 4 for 11 with eight points and seven rebounds.
Ariza picked up his fourth foul _ and third in a 52-second span _ with 3:40 left in the third quarter and went to the bench with the Rockets ahead 69-61. The Clippers outscored Houston 10-3 over the next 2 minutes to pull to 72-71, but never regained the lead.
Los Angeles was down by four when Houston's Carl Landry made a three-point play, Ariza followed with a 21-footer and a layup a minute apart, Kyle Lowry added a layup and Budinger hit a 3-pointer to give the Rockets a commanding 98-82 lead with 1:47 to play.
Brooks was 7 for 7 from the field in the first half, which ended with the teams tied at 52. Neither club led by more than five points until Chuck Hayes made a pair of free throws to give Houston a 65-58 margin with 6:25 left in the third quarter.
Brooks and Ariza combined for 19 of Houston's first 21 points, helping the Rockets take a 27-26 lead after one quarter before a sparse crowd of 13,836. The highlight came with 5 minutes left in the quarter, when Ariza slammed home a tomahawk dunk over Kaman that brought Dodgers center fielder Matt Kemp out of his courtside seat.
Ariza, who came to the Rockets in the trade that sent Ron Artest to the defending champion Lakers, came in leading Houston with an 18.2 scoring average despite the fact that he spent most of his five previous NBA seasons as a defensive specialist off the bench.
NOTES: Scola played in his 182nd consecutive game. His streak is the seventh-longest in club history and three short of John Lucas Jr., whose father is an assistant coach with the Clippers. ... When the Clippers host Indiana on Saturday night, Mike Dunleavy will tie fellow former New York Knicks coach and fellow Brooklynite Red Holzman for 16th place on the NBA list for regular-season games coached at 1,300. ... Rockets coach Rick Adelman was amused when he was told about Artest's admission in this week's Sporting News that he used to drink alcohol at halftime when he played for the Chicago Bulls. "I didn't see that story, but he didn't do it in Houston _ so that was a good thing," Adelman said. "Ron's going to say a lot of things, and I think a lot of it's for effect so that people will listen and react to it. He loves to talk and say things to get people to notice. Maybe it's harder here to get in the papers."
