HOUSTON -- The opening moments of the new up-tempo, spread-them-out offense of Houston Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni started off slowly, with his group missing their first six attempts.

But as the first preseason game against the Shanghai Sharks began to unfold, the Rockets started to make shots.

James Harden, the new "points guard" hit the first bucket of the season, a 3-pointer, and from there, it went. Clint Capela scored on a dunk from a Patrick Beverley feed. A one-legged fadeaway jumper from newly signed Ryan Anderson followed that and the Rockets were off.

When the final totals came in, the Rockets defeated the Sharks, 131-94.

While the final score really isn't important, how the Rockets played under D'Antoni is, and they had plenty of ball movement with Harden taking his new role as distributor seriously.

Harden finished with 10 assists and a team-high 16 points. Among the regulars, Anderson finished with 12, Nene was able to get some good looks inside for a strong eight points, Eric Gordon nailed his first two 3-pointers, and then there was K.J. McDaniels.

McDaniels scored 12 points, several on unreal dunks courtesy of lob passes from Harden.

Overall, the Rockets picked up 34 assists on 49 made field goals.

"I was just trying to make the right passes," Harden said. "I wasn't trying to make the highlight plays. My teammates did a good job of cutting and knocking down shots. We're trying to get familiar with each other and I'm sure we will."

It's hard to evaluate these new Rockets against a team from the Chinese Basketball League. The better evaluation will come Tuesday when Houston hosts the New York Knicks, another NBA team trying to develop chemistry with its triangle offense.

"We're going to run the same [offense]," D'Antoni said. "Hopefully if we execute it right, something's going to open. I can tell you what, if they [Shanghai] cut off the middle, we should get a lot of open 3s."

Yes, the Rockets were able to make sure of that, taking 42 such shots in the victory. Harden was passing up shots to make sure players such as Anderson, who attempted 15 shots, including five 3s, got his touches.

This offense needs Harden to become more of a facilitator than ever before. In different personnel groupings, Harden maintained the point guard position. When he was on the floor with Beverley and Gordon, he was the point guard. With the traditional point guard in Pablo Prigioni in the backcourt, Harden kept the ballhandling duties up.

The Rockets know by adding Anderson and Gordon to the offense, it should take the scoring pressure off Harden, because if he's passing the ball, others are scoring. If that occurs, double-teams will also reduce.

"I think it made it easy especially for James," Beverley said. "He loves getting to the basket and you've got a lineup with Trevor [Ariza] out there, me out there, Eric out there and Ryan out there, it's hard to help [double] anybody. In one hesitation, James gets to the rim, he's able to put a lot of pressure in the paint, which eventually opens up shots for us."