Taipei, March 9 (CNA) Jeremy Lin and James Harden combined to make five last-minute free throws to help the Houston Rockets salvage a 94-88 road victory over the Golden State Warriors on Friday after a horrid shooting night.

Lin had 15 points, four assists and seven rebounds, and eight of his points came from the foul line, including two with 4 seconds left that helped seal the Rockets' victory over his former team.

The normally high-octane Rockets relied on defense to win, holding the Warriors to 12 points in the fourth quarter.

Houston shot just 36.5 percent from the floor, with Harden 3 for 17.

The Rockets (34-29) improved to 3-0 against the Warriors (35-28) this season, and moved to within one game of Golden State in the battle for sixth place in the Western Conference.

The good head-to-head record could help Houston get a higher seeding in the NBA playoffs.

"That's important," Lin said. "I actually didn't even think about (the tiebreaker) until today. But at the end of the day, if we don't take care of business from now until then, we can forget about the tiebreaker."

(By Lee Chin-wei and Lilian Wu)
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