The Houston Rockets managed to tie their Western Conference Finals series 1-1 last night after convincingly defeating the Golden State Warriors at the Toyota Center in Houston, with their MVP finalist James Harden guiding the way.

Warriors 105-127 Rockets - Game 2 - Series tied 1-1

After issuing a battle cry urging his players to step up, it seems Harden got his wish. The Rockets won Game 2 127-105 to even the Western Conference Finals at one game apiece, with the team not even trailing after the first quarter, leading by double digits for most of the night.

Harden and Eric Gordon had the most points on the night for the Rockets as each scored 27 points, but Houston had five players in total score 16 points or more. P.J. Tucker added a playoff career-high 22, Trevor Ariza had 19, and Chris Paul had 16.

It was a performance that proved why the Rockets have been touted as the best team in the NBA this season, and their head coach Mike D'Antoni made sure to emphasise that to spur his players on even more entering Games 3 and 4 away at the Oracle Arena in Oakland.

He said, according to ESPN: "We can beat anybody, anywhere at any time playing the way we play."

Kevin Durant was the Warriors' top points scorer as he finished with 37, while Steph Curry added 16 points of his own. However, the rest of Golden State's roster failed to get into double digits, which ultimately determined which way the result would swing.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said after the game: "We got outplayed the whole game ... we got it handed to us. You can look at it any way you want ... and parcel it out, but it didn't matter who we had out there tonight we got beat."

Game 3 takes place on Sunday night at the Oracle Arena in Oakland.

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