Kawhi Leonard scores 41 points, leading the Clippers past the Rockets, winning back-to-back for the first time since October

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Forget what Bill Parcells said, the LA Clippers are convinced they are better than their record says.

Tuesday night, for the second game in a row, that seemed to be the case. Having Kawhi Leonard healthy helps.

“We’re just believing in it, what we’re trying to do…” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said when asked what was different about those victories. “Kawhi is getting healthy, James (Harden) is fine… Stay the course. We’ve been through a tough time, and it’s been a tough season, with all the injuries, the ups and downs, losing close games. But stay the course. And so I give credit to our guys.”

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Behind Leonard’s 41 and Harden’s 29, the Clippers pulled away to a comfortable victory over the Rockets, 128-108. This was the first time the Clippers had won consecutive games since the second and third games of the season in October.

That comes at the expense of a Rockets team that is struggling, having lost five of their last seven games, with the defense ranked 27th in the NBA in that span. The Rockets struggled from 3-point range in this game (9 of 30), but more concerning is that they continued to make the kind of sloppy mistakes you expect from a young team — the kind of mistakes the Rockets thought they had overcome.

The Rockets have to find themselves in the next 48 hours, before the big Christmas Day game across town against the Lakers.

While the Rockets struggled defensively, the Clippers defense looked as good as it has all season.

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“Outside of the first quarter, I thought defensively, we really locked down…” Lue said. “I thought we took care of the basketball and did a good job of moving the basketball, making quick decisions.”

“Probably the biggest thing we did was consistency in our communication — and obviously just the desire, the need to play hard,” said John Collins, who shot 3-for-3 for 13 points. “I feel like we all feel like our backs are against the wall and we just want to continue to get better and obviously change the course of the season.”

The start of this game was a fun trip down memory lane, proving that the old guys still got it. Kevin Durant scored 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting, while Leonard scored 18 on 8-of-12 shooting. In what had been a back-and-forth game, the Clippers led 63-58 at halftime thanks to better 3-point shooting (45.5% to 31.3%) and more bench points behind Nicolas Batum (six points) and Kobe Sanders (seven).

The Clippers took control of the game in the third quarter with a 13-2 run to take a 92-75 lead, and they did it with their best defense this season. Los Angeles won the third quarter by a dozen points and had a 16-point lead entering the fourth. In the final frame, the Rockets had no answers.

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The Rockets have a lot of questions to answer before the big Christmas game.

“I feel like we weren’t really locked in defensively today, I mean me,” Amen Thompson said. “I feel like I could have been a lot better. Um, just set up my matchup.”

Durant led Houston with 22 points, while Alperen Sengun and Amen Thompson both added 19 points.

The LA Clippers feel they can finally find some answers. Tyronn Lue challenged his team a couple of days ago to go 35-20 the rest of the way, which would put them at .500 by the end of the season. It’s a goal they looked like they could achieve Tuesday night, if only they could stay healthy.

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“If we get out of this situation we’re in, it’s going to take all of us, and so it starts with (Leonard and Harden). They’re our best players,” Lue said. “And they’ve responded in the last two games. We’ve got to keep building days, like I said, keep building days and get better and better.”