When James Harden’s night ended, the defense got easier for the Toronto raptors.

Pascal Siakam scored 24 points and grabbed 11 rebounds and the predators – in their first game since winning the NBA finals – rallied from a 17-point deficit to beat the Houston rockets 134-129 in Tokyo on Tuesday to open the NBA Japan games.

The exhibition game at Saitama Super arena, the site for basketball at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, was the first NBA in Japan since 2003. The rockets and predators return there to complete a two-game series on Thursday.

Raptors coach Nick Nurse said he liked the arena and felt the energy from the Japanese fans.

“We get’ Let’s get predatory ‘in a lot of cities,” the nurse said. “It’s nice to see him in Tokyo as well. Many fans of predators around the world. That’s great.”

There were a lot of rocket fans as well, for good reason.

Harden put on another dazzling offensive show, making his first six shots and finishing 11 for 14 from the field and scoring 34 points in 27 minutes.

His final points were a pair of free throws with 3:40 left in the third quarter that put Houston up 104-87. He checked soon after, and Toronto outscored Houston 47-25 the rest of the way.

Russell Westbrook played for Houston for the first time, scoring 13 points in 21 minutes in his preseason debut.

“It wasn’t bad,” said Westbrook, a longtime Oklahoma city star and former MVP currently in his first season in Houston. “Unfortunately, we didn’t win. This is the main goal. But it was good to get on the floor for the first time, get up and down, try to find a rhythm. We have a lot of work to do.”

Serge Ibaka scored 18 points and Fred Vanvleet had 16, for the raptors, who played without Marc Gasol and Kyle Lowry.

There are six games later on Tuesday: Philadelphia plays host to Guangzhou of the Chinese basketball Association, San Antonio visits Miami, Memphis hosts New Zealand, Dallas goes to Oklahoma city, Minnesota to Phoenix and Denver plays in Portland.

___

Read more AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Current jobs at KVOA-TV / KVOA.com

KVOA, virtual channel 4, is an NBC-affiliated television station licensed to Tucson, Arizona, United States. KVOA consistently delivers stories that people care about, and highlight from its top-rated news 4 Tucson investigators, the station’s award-winning investigative unit.

Current jobs at KVOA-TV / KVOA.com

KVOA, virtual channel 4, is an NBC-affiliated television station licensed to Tucson, Arizona, United States. KVOA consistently delivers stories that people care about, and highlight from its top-rated news 4 Tucson investigators, the station’s award-winning investigative unit.