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Of all the measures of dominance, with more points than he had ever scored a good place to start, James Harden came upon another.
He rolled for three quarters, but had done that before. He dominated the game, scoring so rapidly the scoreboard could not keep up when he reached his career high.
But in the ultimate measure of how thoroughly Harden destroyed one of the NBA's best defensive teams, scoring 56 points to lead the Rockets to a 137-110 blowout of the Utah Jazz, he reached the point where the matchup did not seem fair.
There were step-back jumpers and 3-pointers off the dribble and off the catch. There were free throws and fadeaways and even passes rifled around the floor. But after the 3-pointers poured in through the first half, when Harden was 5-of-5 from deep, the Jazz moved out to take that away.
He attempted just three more 3-pointers, but that's when he had them.
With Jazz guards picking up Harden at 24 feet and more, he repeatedly blew past for layup after layup. He made 7 of his 8 shots in the third quarter, ending it with a tip and then a blur of a drive to the rim, giving him his career high, 54 points, before the fourth quarter began.
Harden had his sixth 50-point game since the 2012-13 trade to the Rockets. No other player in Rockets history had more than two. He has 38 40-point games with the Rockets with Russell Westbrook's 31 games with at least 40 points the next most in that stretch.
He also had plenty of company, with the Rockets going 24 of 40 on 3-pointers, to tie the franchise record for 3-pointers (one shy of the Cavaliers' NBA record) for their second game with at least 20 3s after setting an NBA record with 10 games with 20 or more 3-pointers last season.
Along the way, Harden passed Moses Malone for fifth in scoring in franchise history. The bucket hardly seemed fitting for the occasion or in any other way memorable, but it was typical of the way he took apart one the NBA's best defensive teams.
The Jazz excel with Rudy Gobert, the league's best rim protector owning the lane, allowing their defenders to be ultra aggressive at the 3-point line. The opening between the three-point line and rim was clear, so when Harden drove hard to 14 feet to pull up for his jumper, he moved past Malone and seemed able to score in any way he chose.
The Rockets had rolled through the approximation of defense offered by the Knicks and Hawks, but expected a very different sort of test from the Jazz. They did get it, but the results through the first half were no different.
There were a few possessions that made Jazz coach Quin Snyder's blood boil. But for the most part, the Jazz took away the lane with Gobert protecting the rim as he and Jazz defenders rushed to the passing lanes to cut off efforts to get around him.
It just didn't matter. That was largely because of Harden's marksmanship, but even around him, the Rockets moved the ball sharply to open 3s and nailed them. Harden's 5 of 5 3-point shooting led the Rockets, but they made 14 of 22 3s overall in the first half, shooting so well they made more 3s than any other NBA team averages per game.
Eric Gordon was nearly as hot as Harden, making 4 of his 5 3-pointers while Ryan Anderson and Trevor Ariza each put in 2 of 4. But when Harden rolled through the third quarter, drawing roars nearly as load as when the Astros' World Series championship was celebrated after the first quarter, the game turned to a blowout. The Rockets led by as much as 32 on their way to putting Harden's name in their record book again.
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